E-Book Siblings, Practical and Sensitive Relations, by Ida Wentzel Winther, Charlotte Palludan, Eva Gulløv, Mads Middelboe Rehder 2015

Ida
Wentzel Winther
Charlotte Palludan
Eva Gullv
Mads Middelboe
Rehder
SIBLINGS
PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE
RELATIONS
Siblings
- Practical and Sensitive Relations
By Ida Wentzel Winther
Charlotte Palludan
Eva Gullv
Mads Middelboe Rehder
Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, 2015
Siblings Practical and Sensitive Relations

By Ida Wentzel-Winther, Charlotte Palludan, Eva Gullv and Mads Middelboe Rehder
English edition: December 2015
Original Danish edition 2014 Akademisk Forlag, Copenhagen
A publisher under Lindhardt & Ringghof Publishing A/S, an Egmont Company
Publishing Editor: Lone Fredensborg

Configuration of Open Access edition: Knud Holt Nielsen
Translation: IP Words v/Iben Philipsen
Graphics: Tine Christoffersen TC Grafik
Cover Layout: Imperiet/Simon Lilholt
ISBN: 978-87-7684-728-9
Content
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
A SIBLING STUDY THEORETICAL INSPIRATIONS
13
CHAPTER 1 REAL SIBLINGS
23
CHAPTER 2 THE IMPORTANCE OF THINGS
37
CHAPTER 3 MEDIATED INTERACTIONS
49
CHAPTER 4 SIBLINGS BETWEEN SPACES
62
CHAPTER 5 INTIMACY
74
CHAPTER 6 CONFLICTUAL CLOSENESS
85
CHAPTER 7 MOBILE POSITIONS
98
CHAPTER 8 DOUBTING THE OBVIOUS
109
POSTSCRIPT
121
REFLECTIONS ON A SIBLING STUDY
134
FILM: (EX)CHANGEABLE SIBLINGSHIP EXPERIENCED AND PRACTICED

BY CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN DENMARK
143
BIBLIOGRAPHY
144
The film
The film (Ex)changeable Siblingship Experienced and Practiced by Children and young people in Denmark is made in connection with the research project on which this book is based. It features 30 children and
young people from 10 constellations of siblings, and it can be seen as an
introduction to this book. The film can be found om YouTube at
https://youtu.be/a6vXpmpz008
SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS
Preface
This book is about sibling relations and especially the complex social
webs of divorced families, but it is also a book about motions and emotions.
Children alternating between parent's new homes, are navigating not only
the journeys but also the different emotional landscapes they switch between. By focusing on different family combinations the authors explore
the many facets of siblingship and the different emotional investments
which take place.
In many ways, this is a story of children on the move, a theme beautifully captured in the film, which brings new dimensions to the analyses. It is
also a story of families on the move, trying to be flexible, accommodating
changing needs, demands and problems, households that grow and shrink
with the flow of visiting kids.
This fascinating study captures an important dimension of family life,
through different ethnographic strategies. It highlights the constant tensions between family ideals and family realities, which produce feelings of
togetherness and warmth as well as guilt, frustration and longing.
Orvar Lfgren, Professor emeritus of European Ethnology Department of Cultural Sciences, University of Lund.
This is a fascinating book on a neglected subject, which is yet so common

that most of us will know people in similar circumstances. The most important contributions are the many significant insights that arise from
some excellent research of what families really do, insights that often go
against our assumptions and presumptions. And shows the additional
insights we gain from paying attention to material culture. The book is
also highly unusual in the clarity of presentation, which makes it a model
for reporting academic results and it also makes good use of material cul-
ture as another way of gaining an understanding of the participating childrens behaviour.

What struck me most is the kind of book this is. It is something in between psychology, sociology and anthropology. Maybe this is stereotyping,
but it reminds me a little of Danish Design furniture, rather stylish, elegant
and functional; quite sparse with clear lines and directions. The book
makes especially good points about the importance of the nuclear family,
while appreciating that siblingship is fundamentally cultural and would be
performed differently in places where people live in more extended families. This work is in the tradition of Simmel, because mostly it is about the
essential contradictions of social life, for example, how we seek both intimacy and autonomy. It provides us with the recognition that this is not a
fault but rather something inevitable to most cultural practices.
Daniel Miller. Professor of Material Culture, Department of Anthropology, University College London
Acknowledgements
Siblings Practical and Sensitive Relations is based on a research project,
(Ex)Changeable Siblingships, conducted at the Department of Education,
Aarhus University. The Egmont Foundation financed the project, and we
would like to thank them not only for providing financial support but
also for a highly constructive collaboration. The Danish edition was published in 2014. It was based on empirical material collected throughout
2011 and 2012. It involves close to 100 children and their parents as
well as selected professionals who work with children. Thanks to all our
informants.
We would also like to thank our advisory board which includes representatives from relevant institutions and organisations: Bente
Boserup, Susanne Dahl, Charlotte Guldberg, Sren Gade Hansen, Anders
Kragh Jensen, Nikolaj Lubanski, Grete Nymark and Birgitte Holmberg
Pedersen. As well as our interdisciplinary support-group, which includes
international researchers with professional expertise to supplement the
research teams expertise: Kjeld Hgsbro, Jette Kofoed, Annette
Kronborg, Anette Molbech, Perle Mhl, Jens Christian Nielsen, Mai Heide
Ottesen and Astrid Wrtz Rasmussen. And finally, a huge thank you to all
our international collaborators: Rosalind Edwards, Hilde Lidn, Orvar
Lfgren, Daniel Miller, Karin Zetterqvist Nelson and Carol Smart, with
whom we repeatedly discussed the project and who, in the final phase,
helped us weave the many threads into a whole.
Heartfelt thank you goes to our editor, Lone Fredensborg.
Copenhagen, 2015
Ida Wentzel Winther, Charlotte Palludan, Eva Gullv and Mads Middelboe Rehder.
Introduction
This book is about siblingship as a social and cultural phenomenon in
contemporary Denmark. Being a sibling, having siblings and getting
siblings are conditions in the lives of most children; actually 90 per cent
of all children are registered as having siblings (Nielsen & Petersen,
2008). Despite the prevalence, we have little knowledge of how children
perceive being siblings, who they consider as siblings, and what they do
or do not do together. Neither do we know much about how this phenomenon is culturally understood. Do children consider all the children
they live with as siblings, even if they do not have parents in common?
Can you be more or less real siblings? Can you stop being siblings? Obviously, there are many ways of being a sibling, and sibling relations can
change considerably as children grow up. New children may appear in
the shape of newborn babies or children from previous marriages
while other children may be separated by way of divorce or moving out.
Sibling configurations vary, as do the experiences of having and getting
siblings.
We have wondered why siblingship is neither a topic discussed
among professionals working with children nor in public debates. This is
not to say that the issue of siblingship is entirely ignored, but attention is
mostly directed towards the impact family dynamics have on childrens
relations; not least in relation to families who have undergone changes
by way of bereavement or divorce. Also, sibling rivalry and the importance attached to the position in birth order are recurring themes.
Often however, such discussions more or less implicitly focus on the
vertical relations between parents and child(ren) rather than childrens
internal relations. In this study, we address childrens interrelations,
because we find that a horizontal perspective adds important
knowledge to our understanding of childrens everyday lives in various
family constellations and children as part of family dynamics.
In this book, we investigate childrens experiences and perceptions of

being a sibling. But we also address how material, social and cultural
contexts influence the way siblingship is performed and perceived. We
have a specific interest in examining how childrens relations are affected by the different changes that occur in families. This interest springs
from the fact that many parents in Denmark divorce and enter into new
partnerships, which invariably generates dynamics and changes in childrens sibling relations. This book, however, is not about divorce; it is an
analysis of what being a sibling is and what it means in different life
circumstances.
In the book, we differentiate between what we term long and wide
siblingships and short and narrow siblingships. Inspired by historian
Leonora Davidoff (2012) we regard sibling groups long when there is a
relatively large age gap between the youngest and eldest sibling. We use
the term wide when children have different parents and families and
thus are part of several different households. Short and narrow characterize sibling groups where the children are fairly close in age, share
parents and families and live under the same roof. This differentiation
allows us to discuss various facets of siblingship and to show the interconnectedness between being a sibling and the life worlds and conditions siblingship is performed within.
The book is based on our sibling study from 2011 and 2012, where
we observed and interviewed approx. 100 children from all over Denmark. The study includes siblings who live together and quite a few who
do not. The families financial situations vary; their number and sizes
vary, as do the age differences between siblings and their geographical
position. A number of the children we have talked to have experienced
their parents divorcing, and some have experienced parents serial
change of partner. A smaller group of children have themselves been
separated from their parents and often from their siblings as well as
they live in institutions. Some children have no personal experience with
divorce, but have siblings who commute between homes, or who have
moved away from home to, for example, a boarding school. Finally, there
is a small group of children who have experienced no changes to their

family or sibling relations. In this way, our material encompasses a wide
variety of family models and a diversity of relations between children.
In Denmark many children have more than one home, and they often
commute between homes as a result thereof. This is usually organized
by way of different shared parenting arrangements, typically along lines
of 7-7, 9-5 or 10-3, which refers to the number of days the children
spend with each parent. This life style is supported by Danish legislation,
which makes it possible for parents to share custody and by the welfare
states economic support for children in general and especially for children with divorced parents. The relative prosperity and the relative
short distances in Denmark also allow Danish parents to prioritize and
organise parallel households for their children. Commuting materializes
in different ways. Some schools have rooms specifically designated to
the storing of bags. And for several years now, there has been a designated closed train carriage commonly referred to as the divorce carriage between destinations in Denmark.
Not only the children involved have siblings. Many people have siblings and carry a sibling history with them. In addition, several of us
have children who have siblings. Personal and private stories are not our
areas of interest in this book, but when we turn our gaze to a phenomenon such as siblings, as when any aspect of private life is scrutinised, it
will often reverberate and resonate. Readers will most likely start to
contemplate their own and their possible childrens sibling relations,
and it is our hope that these personal reflections will supplement the
reading of the themes covered in this book.
The Structure of the Book

The book contains eight chapters, each dealing with a central theme.
Chapter 1, Real Siblings, explores how childrens perceptions of siblings
relate to cultural notions and expectations of siblingship. Chapter 2, The
Importance of Things, discusses the ways the material surroundings and
the distribution of things influence sibling relations and family life. In
10
chapter 3, Mediated Interactions, focus is turned to how siblings communicate; not least how they use social media as a means of maintaining
siblingships when physically separated. Chapter 4, Siblings Between
Spaces, focuses specifically on children who commute between homes. It
is emphasized how experiences of transitions and life in transit have
emotional repercussions. In chapter 5, Intimacy, we are interested in
what intimacy entails in sibling relations and how intimacy is at risk of
becoming intimidating. This is followed by a chapter called Conflictual
Closeness, which highlights the coexistence and constant balancing of
conflictuality and emotional closeness in the everyday lives of siblings.
In chapter 7, Mobile Positions, we discuss how sibling positions and roles
change over time, and how children view themselves in relation to how
similar or different they are from their siblings. In the final analytical
chapter, Doubting the Obvious, we thematise how some children consider
sibling relations natural and indisputable while others consider them
much more uncertain and doubtful. A summing up of the themes covered concludes the book. We highlight the general points in relations to
siblingship as phenomenon while at the same time reflecting on the significance siblings have in the lives of children, for example if the experiences of growing up in long and wide siblingship allow children to develop certain socially relevant skills. The experiences of private life settle
in childrens bodies and play out as competences or flaws when they are
called to act in broader social contexts such as schools, workplaces and
public spaces. In this way, we believe that studies of private relations,
including siblingship, can contribute to a more nuanced understanding
of social life. In the concluding part of the book, Reflections on a Sibling
Study, we present a number of considerations over the course of the
study and our priorities.
We have chosen an essayistic approach to the book, thus allowing
the analyses of empirical examples and childrens specific statements to
constitute its core. Our aim has been to allow the reader to gain a sense
of our materials character and to give concrete insight into the contemplations, conditions, challenges and feelings that children experience.
11
This approach has reduced the presence of references and theoretical

concepts. To mark the analytical considerations behind each presentation, we close every chapter with a summery that emphasises our analytical points, including a short paragraph to explain our specific theoretical
inspirations. We have done this to make the chapters easily readable and
to highlight empirical points, thus allowing empirical findings rather
than theory and concepts to take centre stage. It is our hope that this
format will encourage readers to read all chapters, as we believe that
combined, they present a novel view of contemporary siblingship.
Readers will most likely expect different things from a book such as
this. Some may well find too few action- and application-oriented considerations; others may expect to find more theoretical discussions and
methodological considerations in our analyses. In any case, we have
chosen the perspectives of the children themselves as the foundation of
our presentation of the sibling phenomenon.
Precisely to underline the importance we place on children's own
perceptions, we have created a film based on part of our visual material.
This production is an integrated part of the overall research project, but
it is also an independent narrative about some of the facets of siblingship. In the film, children talk about their experiences with siblings and
some of their statements and experiences are included in the chapters of
this book. The film (Ex)changeable Siblingship Experienced and Practiced by Children and young people in Denmark (Winther et al, 2015 - can
be found on YouTube at https://youtu.be/a6vXpmpz008).As discussed
further in the last section of the book, these different publications should
be regarded as a whole.
Before unfolding the chapters, we invite interested readers to continue reading in order to find out more about the theoretical inspirations
of the study. It is also possible to skip the section and go directly to the
analytical chapters without knowledge of the underlying theoretical
contemplations.
12
A Sibling Study theoretical

inspirations
Ideals of family life and sibling relations
Understanding what siblingship entails will always be closely tied to
family relations. Within the last hundred years, we can see how dwellings, gender roles, working life and provider patterns have changed, as
have cultural views of family life, parenthood, children and their roles
and duties. These changes mirror differences in living conditions but
also changes to the perception of what is important and healthy, who
relates to whom, and what that entails in terms of responsibility. The
family is not a static institution; it is a culturally and historically variable,
and this is the point of departure for the historical, sociological and anthropological family research, which has inspired us throughout our
work on this book.
The historian John Gillis points to how the family in a Western European and North American context has become an almost mythological
entity, greatly influencing peoples expectations of themselves and those
closest to them. Differentiating between the families we live with and
the families we live by, he points to how we evaluate our concrete life
with members of our family in light of some very strong ideals about
family. One of the things he points to is the fact that our specific practice
will always be influenced by myths, rituals and pictures that idealise
family relations to a degree, which it is very hard to live up to (Gillis
1996). One example is the widespread idea of the stable, heterosexual
nuclear family as the right and normal family an ideal still very much
alive, despite the fact that 46 per cent of all marriages in Denmark end in
divorce and Statistics Denmark currently operates with 37 different
versions of families in Denmark. The most frequent is the nuclear family.
More than half of all families with children consist of mother, father and
13
children. In addition to this family type, there are, in Denmark, multiple

forms of single parent families and blended families with separate children, visitation children and shared children in varied constellations
(Statistics Denmark).
The way children perform siblingship and their ideas about sibling
relations are influenced by such ideals, as these are embedded in legislation and expressed in public debates, pictures, books etc. For example,
the rights and relations of siblings are determined in a number of legal
regulations that limit closeness (in terms of sexual relationships), define
rights of inheritance, and determine the conditions of custody cases etc.
Also cultural products such as childrens books, childrens TV, fairy tales
and adverts define and maintain norms in relation to siblingship, which
can influence the way children experience their specific relations. Our
aim is not to analyse these ideals and their representations, but our interview material reveals that children draw on such invisible
(re)presentations and perceptions of normality, which they then use to
assess their own relations.
When reading historical and cross-cultural descriptions of sibling
relations, it also becomes evident that ideals and norms are far from
universal (e.g. Circirelli 1994; Montgomery 2009; Weisner & Gallimore
2008, Davidoff 2012). Siblingship should therefore be understood in
relation to cultural and social contexts.
Family Relations are Shaped Through Practice

In our approach to siblings, we have also been inspired by the familysociologist David Morgan, who stresses how important it is to focus on
what it is people do, when they do family. Rather than seeing the family
as a specific institution, he recommends that we investigate a variety of
family structures, ideas about families and family practices (Morgan
1996). In keeping with that recommendation, we investigate what siblings do. Our approach is based on the assumption that the sibling phenomenon is not merely something that exists, it is something that is
shaped through human interaction and friction, and thus it changes
14
shape, intensity and character, also individually, throughout childhood.

This finds us on par with the sibling researchers Rosalind Edwards, Lucy
Hadfield, Helen Lucey and Melanie Mauthner, who look at how children
use their siblings in a UK context (Edwards et all 2006). We are also
interested in finding out what being siblings entails, which expectations
come with siblingship, and how sibling relations vary between children
in different contexts. When compared to their study, we tend to be more
concerned with differences in family structures and the related sibling
figurations, because our material reveals that growing up in either long
and wide or narrow and short siblingships influences relations and
competences.
Our interest in different family structures has also highlighted the
question of the importance of biology, more so than in studies that focus
more unambiguously on sibling relations in nuclear families. We see that
the divide between biological and social siblings is highlighted by some
of our informants and toned down by others. We hear that they talk
about blood being thicker than water, but we also hear that many attach
more importance to those siblings they have grown up with. Biological
bonds are often of great importance when authorities have to regulate
visitation and inheritance cases. And so we encounter the existence of
strong social understandings of what real siblingship is, only they are
also continually challenged (a current example is the increasing number
of global egg and semen donations). In this light, biological relatedness is
obviously of great importance to how some of our informants interpret
sibling relations, but it is difficult to point precisely to what it means.
Perhaps it makes more sense to simply establish that biology is potentially important when siblings interpret their interrelations, but it is far
from the only factor that defines and characterises these relations.
Thus, when siblings are defined by more than biology, we need to
investigate further the circumstances influencing who they recognize as
siblings and who they exclude as strangers, to paraphrase historian Leonora Davidoff who have studied sibling relationships in bourgeois families of the Victorian poque (Davidoff, 2012: 15). In trying to explore
15
this, we furthermore draw on the anthropologist Janet Carstens concept

of relatedness (Carsten 2000; also see Tjrnhj-Thomsen 2004). Using
this concept, Carsten turns our attention to the fact that family relations
are not defined by fixed positions but depend on reciprocal social recognition and actions that support those relations. Even though the classifications and perceptions of the surrounding world obviously influence
the way people view their surroundings, her point is that we establish,
maintain and shape relations through actions. This approach allows us
to view families and siblingship as bundles of relations, constantly
shaped and re-shaped through human interaction and friction. Or families and siblingship can be viewed as framing relations that change character and shape over time, also within the lifespan of individual human
beings. This approach means that whom we classify as siblings can
change as can the way we determine such classification. In line with this
perspective, the family sociologist Carol Smart emphasises that an individuals family relations are shaped through actions and interpretations
that are influenced by said individuals history and conditions. From this
perspective, all concrete relations are not necessarily considered relevant; they are activated or pushed aside, dependent on given situations,
relations and social interests (Smart 2007). In other words, to understand relations, we need to look closer at peoples life-situations and
emotions.
In our context, these discussions are central to the interpretations of
sibling relations that we come across in our material. The informants
talk about their different relations in narrow and wide siblingships, they
talk about changes over time, about events, about material conditions
that have made a difference and about diverging possibilities, conflicts
and emotional experiences of closeness and distance. As is revealed in
our analyses, their combined actions are of central importance to how
we can understand what siblingship entails. However, these actions
cannot be understood as isolated from the social, material, cultural and
historical contexts in which they take place. Relations are conditioned by
circumstances but also by actions.
16
We try to identify these social dynamics, variations and changes by

way of the metaphor movement. Relations move, not least because people move, between families and homes, and because they move each
other through actions and expressions of emotion as well as opting in or
out. Sibling relations are far from unequivocal, they are shaped by family
circumstances and concrete actions. Notwithstanding this mobility, sibling is neither an empty nor an irrelevant category. Regardless of the
people included in this category, siblingship is almost always an important aspect of the way individuals understand themselves, their history and surroundings as well as the way they interpret other peoples
lives. And thus our analyses help emphasise how sibling relations are
important in the lives of children. They are formed by the concrete ways
that people understand each other and the actions they perform in order
to express their relatedness, which again relate to the familiar, biological
and historical contexts that they are part of.
A Horizontal Perspective
As mentioned at the beginning of this introduction, parent-child relations are widely considered central to understanding a childs character
as well as the way s/he acts and feels. From this perspective, childrens
relations to their siblings, both physically and emotionally, are greatly
influenced by their parents attention and appreciation. We agree that
parents play an important role in childrens lives, but we are critical of
approaches where it is immediately assumed that parents are the most
important actors in terms of childrens development, learning, wellbeing
and in relation to family dynamics. We believe that rather than taking
our point of departure in some family members being more important
than others, we have to investigate the different perspectives, interests,
and relations the different members of a given family have. Rather than
looking at vertical relations i.e. relations between parents and children
the focus of this book is turned to the interrelations of children i.e.
horizontal relations. We are interested in investigating the practical and
emotional significance our informants relate to being a sibling. And as
17
researchers, it is important to disengage from the preconceptions that

relate to the family as an institution and the accepted ideas about who is
important. There are children in our study who specifically point to siblings as the most important people in their lives more important than
their parents. Such statements can evolve in certain emotional contexts,
and they may change. However, that is not for us to decide. We cannot
disregard such statements, although it is generally accepted that parents
are the most important people in a childs life. And we cannot regard
such statements as expressions of problematic psychological fixations or
flaws.
Another dominant perception with regard to siblings is the importance allocated to the birth order within a sibling group, in terms of
personality. Here, we also find that the ideology of the nuclear family
prevails when, for instance, we talk about the typical traits of an elder
sister compared to a younger brother. These understandings make little
sense to a family that has changed over the years. In families with divorced parents, where new homes have been established, where different partners and children have been added, and older children have
moved out, the birth order is not a determined structure with unequivocal positions. A child can become a little brother at a ripe age as well as
an uncle to a child his own age. Positions shift and change, which makes
it difficult to determine unequivocal psychological sibling profiles. As the
analyses in this book will reveal, the picture is much more complex and
mobile. Roles and positions shift, as do perspectives and interests. Our
point of departure has been listening to what the children themselves
had to say about this and then trying to understand what that information adds to the knowledge we have. And in a greater perspective,
what it adds to what we know about the everyday life of children, as they
grow up, and about the family as a social institution in this specific society.
And thus, our approach challenges the widespread conception that
not growing up in a nuclear family is something to be pitied, as is the
restructuring of family life in the wake of divorce. We make no judge-
18
ment as to whether or not these conditions are reasons for pity, but we
view childrens families as a condition they grow up under. In childhood,
children enter into many dynamics, relations and structural contexts,
and childhood never was nor is simply bright and carefree; it is full of
conditions and complexities that have to be managed. That adult couples
divorce is a fact, that families split up and children are separated and
coupled with other children is also a fact. Children live with their families and handle their relations in many different ways. Our aim is not to
judge what is good or bad, but rather to shed light on the relational consequences that different actions and family structures entail. In her
study of family practices following a divorce, the sociologist Jenny Ahlberg describes that the most important occurrence for the children is the
arrival of new children (Ahlberg 2008: 274). A study on shared parenting in Denmark carried out by The Danish National Centre for Social
Research, (Ottesen 2011), also emphasises that children perceive siblings as a stabilizing factor when parents divorce and in shared parenting arrangements. These points are remarkable in relation to the weight
divorce proceedings place on the parents and new partners relations to
the children. These points reverberate in our material. We find that the
relations between children are vastly important to their selfunderstanding, identification, learning, actions and perceptions of possibilities as well as to the dynamics within the entire family.
The Material Behind the Book

As has already been pointed out, we are interested in what it means to
be a sibling, the part siblings play in the lives of children, and how siblingship changes over time, as well as how children handle changes in
family structures and the movements in sibling relations that these
changes instigate. To investigate those questions, we designed a qualitative study in order to understand patterns, variations and intersections
in childrens sibling relations.
We have tried to include families and sibling groups of different
shapes and conditions in order to give ourselves the best possible prem-
19
ise for investigating the sibling phenomenon in all its complexity. We did
not want to compare, but rather gain insight into as many of the conditions that influence sibling relations as possible. We have implemented a
snowballing approach, where we looked for informants far and wide. We
have asked schoolteachers and health visitors across Denmark as well as
activated networks of friends, acquaintances and colleagues. We have
announced on Facebook, send letters to selected residential institutions
and contacted after school clubs. In the course of a year, the group of
informants grew each week, until we decided that we had reached a
sufficient and suitably varied number.
Our total material encompasses 93 children from all over Denmark,
12 of whom we have observed at a number of childrens meetings at a
centre for family counselling, where they talked about experiences and
feelings related to their parents divorce and their own family relations.
We interviewed the rest, i.e. 81 children between the ages of 6-32, some
of them several times. In most instances, we interviewed a group of siblings together or individually. The relatively wide spread in ages refer to
the fact that many adults get several litters of children and/or get new
partners. Generally speaking, we have only interviewed and observed
the children, but in a few cases it seemed obvious to also interview
grown-up siblings who could provide us with insight into the longer
sibling narrative. Most of the interviews were conducted in the childrens home; one in a caf; two of them in a residential institution for
young people, and four of them in an orphanage, where the interviewees
resided at the time. We interviewed 16 of the children in groups of four,
four children in each group. They were 9-13 years old and had been
picked from a youth club and an after school club. None of them were
related siblings, which afforded us a unique opportunity to gain insight
into how children talk about their siblings with their peers. Some informants volunteered to photograph events or activities they would
partake in with their siblings, which would then be the starting point of
subsequent follow-up talks. Other informants 30 in all we followed
with a camera, filming them as they did things with their siblings, includ-
20
ing sporting events, visits to cafs, spending cosy evenings at home, or

when commuting from one home to the next. An edited version of these
recordings constitutes our film. In connection with the editing, several of
the participants viewed the material that included them, which gave
cause for further talks. We have followed 10 of the children over a longer
period of time, and we have made quite a few ethnographic observations
about their everyday doings and interactions. Finally, we interviewed 12
parents, two pedagogues, two childrens psychologists, one social worker, two family therapists, two lawyers and an advisor from Brns Vilkr
(Childrens Welfare).
What Did We Ask the Children?

We began all of our interviews by asking the children to make a drawing
of their family and then explain to us who their siblings were and how
they were related. We did this because we wanted the children themselves to define whom they considered siblings and whom they perhaps
did not consider siblings. Generally, we simply wanted to hear how they
themselves defined family members. The drawings then became our
point of departure for further questions such as: what would they do
with their siblings, how did they live, who did they possibly share a room
with, which chores did they have, how much pocket money did they and
their siblings get, who did they go on holiday with, who did they eat
with, who did they fight with etc. We wanted this opening and subsequent conversation to help us locate the specific understanding of being
a sibling for each individual child. So we listened to their personal experiences with their siblings and their narratives about the more common
ideas and ideals about siblingship. We continually asked clarifying and
slightly off-key questions, which allowed for associations that differed
from the immediate and evident. The interviews gave us insight into
quite a few relations, and we were struck by the strong influence material conditions and the organisation and logistics of a family have on the
relations between children and the time they spend together; a recurring
theme in several of the chapters. We were also struck by the subjects the
21
children talked quite freely about and the subjects that were barely
touched upon. We heard a lot about emotional relations, about whom
they liked and how and what emotions were stirred in certain situations.
But we were not told much about their parents, i.e. their collaborative
skills and possible divorce, and conflicts were only superficially touched
upon. Naturally, we have accepted these priorities and we never probed
deeper when we sensed that a child was unwilling, partly because we
never felt close enough to the children, and partly because ethical considerations demanded respect. We mention this, however, to point out
that although we have covered many subjects in our interviews, there
are also aspects we know very little about. Nonetheless, we find that the
material contains many important themes.
It is our hope that the perspectives raised by the children will be
stimulating and allow for a greater focus on sibling relations in future
discussions of the everyday lives and conditions of children.
22
CHAPTER 1: REAL SIBLINGS
Chapter 1
Real Siblings
By Eva Gullv
Interviewer:
Bodil:
Interviewer:
Bodil:
Interviewer:
Bodil:
Bodil:
Youre 13, and you said there are three siblings in this
household?
Yes, and then theres their big brother, who is also a little
bit my big brother. Well, I see him as my big brother, but he
isnt my big brother.
You began (the interview) by saying that Kasper isnt your

brother, but now you say he is?
Yes
So, when did you become siblings?
Well, my mother and Kurt, they met when I was two. So,
hes always just been there. And when you live together
long enough and know each other really well, you know,
then you become sort of, well, to me, hes definitely, 100%,
my big brother
You know, Kasper and I have a really close relationship.

We talk about everything and help each other with everything, I mean, not school and stuff like that, but you know
yeah, feelings and that, everything (Bodil 13 years old).
In these excerpts from an interview, Bodil reflects on her relation to a

family member, Kasper. Kasper came into her life when she was two,
because her mother moved in with Kaspers father. They have lived together every other week throughout their childhood, as both of them
23
alternate between parents. As is apparent, she considers Kasper her

brother, but she is also a little hesitant and initially describes him as the
brother of her siblings. From a conventional, biological perspective, they
are not related. But, as she explains, you can become siblings when you
have lived together for a long time and know each other really well.
Sibling Categories
Bodils hesitation speaks volumes. For what do you call children you live
with but with whom you have no parents in common? Expressions such
as my real brother, she is not my real sister, they are my half-siblings,
they are my bonus brothers, theyre merely stepsiblings 1, I consider
him my part-time brother take up considerable space in the material
and corroborate how the children (and the adults in their lives) strive to
find denominations that others are able to understand yet also reflect
their own perception of the relation.
Offhand, it would appear that the chosen categories are quite systematically constructed. Bonus siblings is a more positive term than
stepsiblings when describing someone who has entered your life but
with whom you do not have parents in common. Half-siblings or parttime-siblings have one parent in common, while full siblings or real
siblings share both parents. However, apparently the categories are not
experienced as being quite so straightforward. Some of the interviewed
children struggled to align their lived experiences with the established
categories; because categories do not merely describe, they also stipulate that some relations are more right than others. Some invent new
expressions to fit their relations (we are everyday-siblings, she is my
weekend-sister), while others insist on describing their relation as that
of siblings, regardless of the degree of biological relatedness. This is true
of Bodil in the example above, and it is true of 13-year-old Philip. During
a group interview, another child asks Philip if his big brother is not in
The exact phrase used by informants is cardboard siblings indicating a nonstable or fragile relationship.
1
24
fact his half-brother, but Philip emphasises that he calls him brother
even though they have different fathers. They have always lived together
and although his elder brother is a few years older and much more interested in his computer and his girlfriend than in his younger brother,
to Philip he is indisputably his brother.
Vigga who is part of a family that comprises children from several
relationships explains how she views her seven siblings:
Vigga:
Interviewer:
Vigga:
I consider Sally and Agnes and Linus and Jenny, and yeah,
its them really. Because Nicolaj and Sebastian and Thomas, they are not really my siblings So Jenny and Linus and
Agnes and Sally and me, they are my half-siblings
And what about Nicolaj and Sebastian and Thomas?
Theyre just step.
(Vigga 10 years)
Viggas categorization follows the conventional understanding of biological kinship. If you look a little closer at the interview, however, it becomes clear that, as was the case with Bodil in the opening dialogue, she
is concerned with other aspects. Even though, at one point, she explains
that she does not really have any real siblings, in the interview, she goes
a long way to explain her relations to the others. She considers fouryear-old Linus and six-months-old Jenny who live with her father, and
one-year-old Sally who lives with her mother, very close siblings, because she has always lived with them, and they are very fond of her. It is
of great importance for her that visits are not too far apart. She has
known 16-year-old Agnes for several years, and so, Agnes has also
known Vigga when she was younger, and they share many experiences.
Now that Agnes is at a boarding school they do not have much contact,
yet Vigga still feels closely connected to Agnes on account of their shared
history. The two older boys, Sebastian and Thomas are now in their mid20s and Vigga has never really had much to do with either one of them.
On the other hand, she has occasionally lived with 15-year-old Nicolaj
25
and she describes him as a closer brother. As her narrative progresses, it

appears that her classification is as much a description of relatedness
over time; Vigga feels mostly related to the children she has shared her
everyday life with and with whom she has done things over a longer
period of time.
The conventional classification of siblings based on biological relatedness is therefore not necessarily particularly representative of the
experiences of children. This is illustrated when Viggas elder brother,
Nicolaj, emphasises that they all makes up a family, even if others may
not see it that way:
I think of them as my family. But then again, some of them might not
be real and real family and stuff, but I still think of them as family (Nicolaj, 15 years old).
In the interview, he makes quite an effort to stress relatedness, even
though he does not include the same children as Vigga in his group of
siblings. A sibling group may include different siblings, depending on
perspective and position.
Even if the children we have interviewed generally use wellestablished categories and also reference accepted understandings of
some siblings being more real than others it would appear that they
also need to emphasise other experiences or add nuances to these categories. To understand the material, we must therefore differentiate between an ascribed and a lived understanding of siblingship.
The ascribed understanding rests on a well-established cultural distinction based on a biological classification of whom we consider siblings
and whom we do not consider siblings. From this perspective, siblingship is unequivocal and invariable and it is exactly its invariability that
distinguishes it from friendship. This cultural understanding dominates
the way siblings are generally presented and it is an understanding that
all our informants relate to.
26
The second understanding of siblings, that of lived experiences of

siblingship, is the most prevalent in the interviews. Because when the
interviewees talk about their siblings, they need to nuance and define
beyond the common understandings of what being a sibling entails. Siblingship is not merely a predefined category; to each individual, it represents unique relations that change over time and encompass many different feelings. And it is exactly this lived experience of emotional complexity and changeability that seems to incur deliberation and doubt.
Complexity, to all intents and purposes, contests the unequivocal understanding that is culturally dominant. Children apparently assess their
own sibling relations in relation to what is presented as real siblingship; i.e. unequivocal and invariable siblingship.
Emotional Relatedness
A general aspect of the descriptions is that siblings are a relation you,
ideally need not to consider; an understanding probably supported by
the conventional idea that real siblingship cannot be broken. Nicolaj
expresses it this way:
Nicolaj:
Interviewer:
Nicolaj:
Theyre just there, and theyre nice to have. And you can
talk to them and stuff, be with them and you know
They are a given, not someone you have to consider?
Yeah, yeah, you can fight with them and fall out, but
theyre still there.
Some of the children describe siblings as providers of emotional security, a feeling of having someone who is always there for you, that you are
never alone or completely isolated. You do not have to live together or
be biologically related, but the awareness of accessibility is central. With
this awareness comes another expectation, namely that of ones siblings
being unconditionally loyal. Even when they cannot be physically present, the relation entails an ideal perception of the others taking an in-
27
terest in your life and backing you up. By way of example, Eline has the
following contemplations on her obligations towards her younger brother:
Eline: If I hear that some of Theodors friends are on their way, and
they tell me that something has happened, of course, Ill get upset. And
if it happened just close by so of course Id go and help and see if he
was okay or something And hed do the same for me. I know that,
(Eline, 9 years old).
At the same time, she emphasises that siblings should not monitor each
other and they should not be too protective of one another. She elaborates by stating that the good thing about her elder brother is that he is
not controlling:
Eline: My big brother, hes, I mean, hes not one who is really into what
other people do, like if you do something wrong or put something down
the wrong way or things like that. Its a bit more like; you have to fix it
yourself. Hes a really good big brother, because he doesnt watch to see
if I take some sweets, and I forgot to ask or what do I know, you know,
stuff like that. So he doesnt keep taps on me so much (Eline, 9 years
old).
From Elines perspective, siblingship entails an indisputable solidarity
that includes not controlling or backstabbing each other; it is each to
their own, but there is help if needed. It is a fine line between keeping
taps and providing the space to fix it yourself, as Eline expresses it. At
the same time, she elaborates that she does not share thoughts and secrets with her brother. The closeness of their relation is rather located in
what it is not necessary to verbalise or explain; it becomes a very special
relation because there is an expectation of potential loyalty and of a
lasting relation.
28
As will be discussed further in the books last chapter, Doubting the

Obvious, this expectation can, however, also lead to doubt. Younger siblings are not always convinced that their elder siblings really take an
interest, and many have experienced direct rejections when seeking the
company of their older siblings. Solidarity and loyalty seem to be defining aspects of what siblingship should be. And this is exactly why doubt
as to whether or not that solidarity will also manifest itself is a pivotal
point in many childrens reflections on their concrete sibling relations.
This is seen when Liv, for example, talks about her siblings: They are
really there for you most of the time. Being a sibling entails an emotional obligation, which can also be a source of insecurity.
Relatedness and Autonomy

Even though there appears to be an explicit expectation that siblings will
be there for you, there are many deliberations on where and how it is
appropriate to show that you are related. You are obligated to one another, but only to a certain degree, because displaying too strong a relatedness can also challenge your autonomy as an individual. In a group
interview, four children aged 12-13 reflect on the question of what you
can expect of your siblings:
Jakob:
Sigrid:
Emma:
Philip:
Theyll help you if you need it

If its real bad, then yes
It depends on whether theyre older or younger
Yeah, thats right
The experience of sibling relations is also influenced by the social contexts. Older siblings are more obligated to help their younger siblings,
though it has to be a serious situation for you to trouble your older sibling(s). In the group interview, the children talk about how some of their
older siblings are sometimes a little embarrassed by them. As when
Emma talks about her brother refusing to walk her to school:
29
Emma:
Interviewer:
Emma:
Interviewer:
Philip:
Sigrid:
Philip:
Emma:
Then we pretend that were not together (laughs)

Was he embarrassed to be with you, or how should we
understand it?
Probably just that Im a little girl who shouldnt be hanging out with his friends just then But later on, it was sort
of okay. I didnt talk to him much at school, on rare occasions
So if someone teases you, is it then alright to call on your
older brother or sister?
It depends on how bad it is
I mean, her big brother was extremely strong, you know
(pointing to Emma)
Hes really big
Hes like this karate-ninja, right, but no, Im usually quite
capable of hitting back if the boys in my class hit me or
poke me or something. But then, if its really bad, then Id
like to be able to count on him helping me.
It is apparent that many of the children are quite aware that support
from siblings is not always a real help in the on-going social games they
are part of. It is a resource they expect to have access to, but help from
siblings is also connected to risk and potential loss of prestige. Partly
because there is no guarantee that their siblings will actually help if
asked, and partly because help signals an inadequacy that most children
would want to keep invisible. Judging by their stories, there seems to be
an explicit awareness that siblings are always there, but in practical
everyday life there are most certainly limits to how often you get to see
each other, how much contact you have, and in which situations it is
appropriate to call on one another.
Schools, afterschool care and youth clubs appear to be places where
siblings dont engage in each others activities. These are places where
you hang out with your friends, and no matter how important a sibling
30
relation may be, it belongs in other contexts. As we sense when listening

to Vigga:
Interviewer:
Vigga:
Interviewer:
Vigga:
Interviewer:
Vigga:
Well, what about, do you use Nicolaj if you get upset?

No I dont. Im okay in school
So did Agnes, did she go to the same school?
Yeah, she just left
Was it nice to have her at your school then?
Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes she would also just say, get
lost
And in the following excerpt, Laurits also expresses a certain reservation

in terms of asking for help from his one-and-a-half-year younger brother:
Interviewer:
Laurits:
Interviewer:
Laurits:
Interviewer:
Laurits:
Interviewer:
Laurits:
Okay, so what if youre in school and somebody teases you

or says something that upsets you, or if a teacher tells you
off, or whatever it may be, would you look for Oskar at
school?
No, its only him wholl look for me
Okay
And then Ill talk to the teacher about it
Okay, so you never look for him at school?
Not very often. I think its better, a little, you know, more
supportive when you have a big brother who, who, I mean,
I just dont think Id look for my little brother. But then, my
friends are usually quite good at helping out. I mean, then,
I mean, its not that Oskar cant help. But you know, when
my friends are close by and stuff. But Oskar, many of his
friends often come running and say that I have to come
over, if anything is wrong, well, not often, but sometimes
Then what do you do?
I go and ask if he is okay
31
Interviewer:
Laurits:
Okay, then if someone teases him of something: would it be

helpful if his elder brother comes?
Yeah, well, then I dont say anything to them, I say something like, cant you go and look for a teacher on playground duty and if they dont stop, then Ill walk them
over to a teacher or something
(Laurits, 11 years old)
What is interesting here, is the indication of the many dilemmas that

Laurits experiences. It is not easy to balance the role of elder brother
with the contexts he finds himself in. Throughout the remaining interview, Laurits manages to explain in many different ways that he can
always count on Oskar. If something has happened during the day, he
will tell Oskar about it. In their individual interviews, both he and Oskar
emphasise how close they are, and in a steady stream of associations,
they recount playing football together, cycling, doing parkour, playing
with Lego, and describe how they have always been together, shared a
bedroom, regardless of whether they are staying with their mother or
their father. And yet both of them also make some effort to stress that
there are situations when you cannot be obligated to one another, and
you have to balance the considerations you make. In school, it is not
really appropriate to be dependent on one another, especially not for
Laurits; school is where you have to call on the teachers.
The Nature of Responsibility

The balancing that the children express in relation to where and how
they can depend on their siblings relate to a more common perception
about children and independence. Professional day-care institutions
stipulate that you have to be aware of not placing too much responsibility for their siblings on any child. Children should be encouraged to develop independently and having to consider younger siblings may be
experienced as a burden. And it would appear that something similar
32
occurs at home. Many children have chores at home, but they are usually
distributed individually. Older children can be given the chore of having
to look after younger siblings, especially in families where the age-gap is
considerable, or older children may be asked to help in the transition
from one home to another. But in the more evenly aged sibling groups,
helping young siblings with getting dressed, with homework and with
picking them up does not seem to be part of everyday life. On the contrary, it would appear that siblings are explicitly not obligated to one another, something that varies significantly from expectations of siblings in
many other societies.
This aspect is also evident in several of the parent interviews. In the
following excerpt, by way of example, Jane expresses her concern that
her eldest son has been handed too much responsibility for his siblings:
Hes been handed a lot of responsibility for his two younger siblings,
which somehow he shouldnt have, I think. You will always get responsibility. But he takes responsibility himself, you know, because hes older,
and he should, but not too much Sometimes I feel that its been too
much for him (Jane, mother of 3).
And Malene corroborates this concern:
Yes, I also think Ive made an effort that having siblings should not become a burden for them. I mean, they shouldnt we are the ones who
wanted children (Malene, mother of 4).
In other words, siblingship is considered a relation that children must
not feel burdened by. Duty can undermine independence and perhaps
also put a strain on the relation. Marianne expresses it quite explicitly in
this slightly longer excerpt where she reflects on her eldest daughter,
10-year-old Mathildes role in relation to Laura who is two years her
junior:
Marianne:
Its not like she has to keep Laura in her back pocket,
not at all
33
Interviewer:
Marianne:
Interviewer:
Marianne:
Interviewer:
Marianne:
Interviewer:
Marianne:
What about in school are they obligated to one another

when they are in school together?
No, I simply wont have that. There are teachers on playground duty over there, keeping an eye on them. That they,
that Matilde has kept an eye on whether someone has hit
her younger sister and then comforts her, thats another
matter. Ive never told them that they have to help each
other
That they are responsible for one another?
No. Youre in school and you have to make the most of it
and get by on your own. And Mathilde, she shouldnt be
dependant during the breaks, being the nurse who looks
out for her sister. Because she has to learn to look after
herself, and there are also her friends and other adults
around as well
So do you know if they have ever used one another in that
way, regardless of what you have told them?
Yes, they have. Yes, I know that Laura has run up to
Mathilde and said: You know, so and so from your class
did this and this, right. And then Mathilde has tried to be
the mediator and, and I can hear that that can quickly go
wrong. So Ive just said: Yes well, you should go and see
the adults in charge, that is what I told Laura, and
Mathilde, you should go and see the adults who look after
you
No, as you say, there are adults over there as well
Yeah, yeah, and of course they can use one another, its not
that Of course they can, but they have to learn to manage on their own, yeah.
From parent interviews and conversations with kindergarten teachers

as well as after school care and youth club assistants, you get the general
impression that if siblings take responsibility for one another it may
34
impair their individual independence and autonomy. A sibling relation

should be borne out of an emotional tie, it should not stem from given
tasks or too much asymmetry. On the contrary, it would appear that
parents, pedagogues and teachers alike see sibling relations as so much
of a given that their task is more a question of liberating each individual
child rather than supporting their sibling relations.
Interestingly, this emphasis on emotions means that siblingship, despite
the unequivocal classification, has no unequivocal content. Sibling relations are formed by way of emotional exchanges, and therefore each
individual has to work continuously to express their own emotions and
interpret the signals of other siblings. This becomes evermore important
in situations where physical and organisational frames do little to support the relation, e.g. when siblings alternate between homes out of step,
when siblings move away from home, or when you have to live with
children you do not know (cf. discussion in Chapter 4, Siblings Between
Spaces). Sibling relations are emotional relations and might therefore be
experienced as difficult and complex, despite a rhetoric that makes it
sound like a fairly simple and indisputable phenomenon.
Summary
As revealed in this chapter, siblingship is, on the one hand, presented as
a rather unequivocal phenomenon, defined by biological kinship. On the
other hand, sibling relations are experienced as being as complex as any
other social relation. They are full of concrete considerations and interpretations, investments, joys and disappointments, and are experienced
as unique while also being held up against and judged by general, cultural understandings of what siblingship is and should be. By implementing
a perspective that focuses on these experiences, it becomes clear that
siblingship is not a given relation. It is a phenomenon one has to work at
maintaining, in ways that at the same time live up to certain wellestablished expectations of loyalty and invariability while also being in
accordance with the concrete places and relations each individual is part
of. As the examples above reveal, this work entails considerations and
35
interpretations, which, on occasion, also gives cause for doubt, something to which we will return in the last chapter.
Theoretical Inspiration
The approach to this chapter was inspired by analyses conducted by the
British anthropologist Janet Carsten. We have been particularly inspired
by her concept of relatedness as a perspective on family relations,
which focuses on peoples perceptions and actions rather than established classifications. The British study on sibling relations by R. Edwards, L. Hadfield, H. Lucy and M. Mauthner (2006) has also been a
source of inspiration, because their primarily sociological approach reveals actions and emotions encompassed by siblingship. Finally, numerous studies of siblingship in other cultural contexts (see for instance
Cicirelli 1994; Montgomery 2009; Weisner & Gallimore 2008) inspired
the chapters attention to the expectations and obligations that siblingships encompass in a Danish context. And we can also mention a Danish
study on siblings in day-care institutions (Hyrup 2013), which points to
the general perception that children should not be overly responsible for
their siblings.
36
CHAPTER 2: THE IMPORTANCE OF THINGS
Chapter 2
The Importance of Things
By Charlotte Palludan and Ida Wentzel Winther
In front of the house, there is a green Opel Zafia with a roof rack. Next to
the car there is a post-box with a sticker that reads: The Hansen Jensen
Family. A red and blue plastic motorbike is lying in the driveway. There
are two junior childrens bikes and a muddy mountain bike leaning
against the wall of the house. The nameplate next to the front door has a
lot of names on it. In the entrance hall, there are coats on hooks and
three schoolbags in a pile. Right next to the entrance, there is a small
closet-room with shelves from floor to ceiling on the one wall. These
shelves are filled with baskets and boxes, each with a nametag. Against
the other wall, there is a tall, white shoe closet, and next to the entrance,
there is a key-rack with the names of the residents engraved with an
electric incandescent burner. On it are house and bike keys, each with a
nametag. If you proceed a little farther into the house, you find portraits
of all the children in the household.
Bits and pieces

To have and be siblings are manifested materially: the more children, the
more things. But do things tell us anything about what is actually going
on? Can we read things as expressions of something? By looking at the
list of names on the nameplate, the number of shoes and coats in the
entrance hall, the number of bicycles parked in the driveway and the
number of childrens portraits in the house, it becomes obvious that
children live here, but it says nothing about whether or not they are
37
siblings. You get the impression that there are children of many sizes
(from a plastic motorbike to a mountain bike), and a closer look at the
nameplate reveals that the names are constructed in different ways. The
names are listed in a sequence that forms a pattern: Sren Jensen, Sanne
Hansen, Frederik Rodsten Hansen, Fie Rodsten Hansen, Frederikke Jensen and Felix Hansen Jensen. The top two (Sren and Sanne) are most
likely the adults. Sannes last name, Hansen, is repeated in three of the
following names, Frederik and Fie whose middle name is Rodsten, and
Felix (the last name on the list) who has two last names: both Jensen and
Hansen. Srens last name is also Frederikkes last name, which in all
likelihood indicates that she is his daughter. In other words, the children
do not have the same last name, but they are connected by way of a first
name starting with an F.
Nameplates can provide one approach to understanding how material orders interweave and generate social orders. Nameplates not only
reveal who lives here, whom the house encompasses; a nameplate tells
us that these people are categorised as a family. Whether or not the
listed children have always been siblings is not revealed, but they are
connected and constituted by way of the nameplate. If you look closer at
the portraits around the house, you will see how they also contribute to
the constitution of connections between the children and they reveal
how the children are related. In the living room, there are kindergarten
portraits of three smiling children in a row. It is Frederik, Fie and Felix.
In the hallway between the living room and the kitchen there is a huge
wall picture with photographs of a handful of children in many different
situations. Frederikke made this a couple of years ago and she gave it to
her father as a present, because her portrait was not included in the row
of smiling children. She has included photos of both Frederik and Fie
from when they were little, before she knew them in other words, before their parents moved in together. There are photos of her, alone and
with the other two children. And then there are lots of photos of Felix,
who is the son of both parents and the youngest brother they all share.
In the bottom corner, Frederikke has placed a small photo of Cilla, her
38
younger sister, whom her mother had 10 years ago and whose father is
Jeppe. The photos illustrate the history of the sibling group, and it is a
material manifestation of the fact that they were not always siblings but
now they are.
Connections actively occur around and by way of material things. The
computer appears to be one such pivotal material point in many families.
We see this clearly in the home of 13-year-old Jakob, as his sister, who
no longer lives at home, squeezes into his life and onto his computer. On
the one hand, he is pleased that she is home, but at the same time, he
also finds it a little annoying that she makes a mess and throws her bras
on top of his computer. Alongside Jakob, his peers Philip, Emma and
Sigrid talk about how the computer plays a different part in their relations to their siblings. It constitutes a rallying point for them. In Philips
and Sigrids families, there are two stationary computers that everyone
uses, which is annoying when you want to be left alone and even more
so, when someone else sneaks a look at your passwords. In Jakobs
house, they all have their own computer, and both he and his 18-yearold brother often play games at the same time, i.e. they meet online.
Sometimes Jakobs elder brother will order Jakob to carry out specific
duties, such as fetching bottles of cokes and pizza. When Marius, who is
eight, sometimes minds his younger sister who is one, they play shooting
games together, and otherwise he will often argue with his elder brother
about which games to play on the computer. Different kinds of siblingship play out around the computer. Including the teasing and conflicting
as well as the servicing and solicitous siblingships.
Abundance and Scarcity

In 13-year-old Kalles sibling group, computers are less something that
the children unite around and more like possessions that are distributed
among them according to a requirement-logic defined by their parents.
Part of this logic stipulates that each child/family member can gain access to a shared family computer depending on specific wants or for
specific purposes. The computer is located in Kalles room, which means
39
that the other children are allowed access to his room, unless he has a
valid reason for keeping them out. The valid reason is homework, and he
sometimes uses it to keep his siblings out. In this way, the family computers and associated policies for using them become an integrated part
of Kalles link to his siblings. By way of the computer, he becomes especially privileged and holds a certain power over some of their shared
belongings, while at the same time he is expected to show a sense of
fairness and justice in the allocation of computer access.
Nine-year-old Karl has a brother who is seven years his senior, and,
like Kalle, he is also highly influential in certain matters. His name is
Kasper and they share a room. It is organised in a manner that includes
Karl moving out and sleeping on the sofa when Kasper is home. Among
other things, this means that Karl does not have unlimited access to his
musical instruments as these are stored in their shared room. He needs
Kaspers permission to stay in the room and use his things. Karl adheres
and accepts that it is a necessary condition related to the scarcity of
space in a large family with lots of children. His adhering to material
circumstances makes it possible for the entire sibling group to live under
the same roof; something his body language strongly indicates that he
appreciates. At the same time, he reveals that he finds it a little unfair
that Kasper is thus afforded a special position in the sibling group, while
his own contribution is taken for granted. And thus the material conditions and the material order constitute a lack of equality within the sibling group. Some have precedence, while others are at a disadvantage.
In Albertes home, the scarcity of space manifests itself in three children sharing a small room. Having to adhere to each others sleeping
rhythms and shared noises can, on occasion, cause irritation within the
sibling group. However, the discomfort that both Alberte and her one
brother, Kalle, experience in relation to sharing a room is probably first
and foremost connected to the original allocation of the room. When the
family had to move to an apartment that necessitated a shared room,
three children sharing two rooms appeared to be an option. Alberte
dreamt of having her own room and sensed that her father and his girl-
40
friend understood this dream and found it reasonable, because Alberte is

a girl who needs a room to herself and away from her two brothers. In
much the same way, Kalle dreamt of having his own room and he also
sensed that the adults understood and found it reasonable, as he was the
eldest of the three siblings. When the day of the move finally arrived, and
the rooms were allocated, it turned out that one of the rooms would be
used as a study, which meant that the second room became the shared
bedroom of all three siblings. Both Alberte and Kalle were disappointed.
Apparently, they have not talked about their hope let alone their disappointment. They simply appear to accept both the specific decision made
and the fact that the adults decide on the material conditions pertaining
to the sibling group.
This is not how it plays out at Nannas home when she is exposed to
an equally disappointing parent decision. She comments on what she
considers an unfair and unjust allocation of rooms. When Nanna and her
mother move in with Liv and Livs father, Nanna is given a room to herself. However, Nanna voices her displeasure with the room, as she believes it to be smaller and therefore less attractive than Livs room. Nanna seeks confirmation for her allegation by measuring the room, thus
drawing attention to the fact that the room is indeed smaller. The parents, however, uphold the allocation of rooms, as their logic stipulates
that Liv should be allowed to stay in the room she has always occupied.
It is an argument Liv herself accepts, although she never contributes to
the discussions. Liv deals with the situation by way of silence. And so,
the girls position themselves differently, by way of vociferous opposition
and silence, respectively. There are only two rooms, and the difference in
the girls response to the allocation of rooms can be understood as two
different strategies to obtain space physically as well as mentally.
Fairness and Justice

The stories of Liv and Nanna and Alberte and Kalle reveal that parents
allocations of rooms generate potential opposition between siblings and
thus it points to rooms being more than materiality. Rooms also consti-
41
tute social powers that generate specific relations, which is something

the parents are aware of and try to take into account when they allocate
and distribute. Cornelius, Eigil and Arendses house is being refurbished,
which, among other things, means the addition of two new rooms for the
children. The parents, Bjrn and Malene, decide that the two eldest children, Arendse and Eigil, will get the new rooms. Cornelius will keep the
room he has had along, which he used to share with Eigil. But, Cornelius
feels disadvantaged and so his parents decide that as compensation, he
will also get to use the extra room in the basement that previously belonged to Eigil, but now Cornelius can use it to play on his Play Station.
This gives Cornelius two rooms and he is content. And so their parents
manage to avoid creating too much of a stir in the sibling group, despite
Eigils privileges being contested. Whether or not Eigil agrees is not revealed, but as he is given one of the new, larger rooms, he does not protest as he loses his basement room. Fair ? From the outside it seems
right and rather fair; but what adults consider indisputably fair is not
always how children experience it. Neither is fairness always the most
important aspect as far as children are concerned. Having to hand over a
room to ones sibling can thus be a rather emotional affair for very different reasons. It could be, for example, that a child is particularly fond
of a specific room, due to certain memories related to that room.
Age appears to be a legitimate differentiation factor when allocating
and distributing material things among siblings. The older you are, the
bigger, the newer, the more expensive the material resources you are
entitled to. This does not push siblings into opposing corners, nor does it
generate arguments and fights on any scale commensurable to unfair
resource distributions by way of other principles. These could include
gender and seniority, which are used much less frequently than the principle of age, and most often retrospectively, when specific resource allocations call for an explanation. Parents relate that distribution and allocation of material resources always hang in the balance. It is rarely a
question of following principles dogmatically; it is rather a continuous
assessment of how to enable a just and fair distribution. And it does not
42
merely concern the allocation of rooms, it also concerns the distribution

of electronic devises, bicycles, clothes and childrens savings accounts
etc., including scope, quality, sizes as well as frequency. Livs and Nannas parents have given this much thought in relation to phones and
music systems. One guideline in their deliberations is an even distribution of resources in order to secure social equality. They have, however,
been derailed by other parents and grandparents by way of gifts that
include an iPhone and a computer. Rather than resettling the balance
through an even distribution of material resources, Livs and Nannas
parents have had to re-balance by way of filling gaps and smoothing over
inequalities, ensuring that the girls material status remains relatively
equal.
Priorities and Investments

Moral balancing is interlaced with the families financial priorities and
histories. Karls parents buy computers and musical instruments for all
their children as and when required. However, they cannot add more
rooms to their villa apartment, despite the increasing number of children in the family. They live in close quarters and some siblings have to
share rooms, and as a consequence, the right of use has to be counterbalanced accordingly. Kalle and Alberte, on the other hand share computers, while the fact that their mother has been a member of a housing
association for many years enables her to offer her children their own
room. Which may make it a little easier for them to have to share a room
when staying with their father. Specific priorities and the subsequent
counterbalancing are often based on principles and logics, which parents
create and adjust over time, but they are not always consciously and
explicitly included in concrete considerations.
Sometimes, a social order is inadvertently affected by material circumstances. You could say that sometimes it simply happens that way,
as when the saucepan once again proved too small when all the children
in the family were sat around the table. The mother is dishing out pasta,
and as she gets to the last of five children, she realises that there is only
43
just enough to go all the way around, and she frets, because despite
cooking a lot of pasta, it barely suffices. She acknowledges that it has
nothing to do with a scarcity of pasta but rather a scarcity of saucepans
large enough for the number of people eating dinner. There are children
who live in the household permanently and the saucepans match this
particular constellation. When the household is extended, there are no
saucepans large enough to cook pasta for everybody. The use of a certain
saucepan signifies that the material equipment in the household is not
adapted to the total number of children in the family, and thus it becomes a symbol of how not everybody is considered a complete and
equal member of the family. The handling of materiality unintentionally
turns into something we can read as including or excluding social statements. Whether it is experienced as unfair can be difficult to tell and it
varies greatly.
12-year-old Zenia alternates between living with her father and her
mother, and she does not have a room in either home. In both households, there are other children; some of who also have other homes,
while others live there permanently. In one home, Zenia sleeps in a
shared room with the other children. In the other home, she sleeps in a
bed-loft, which she also shares with other children. Maybe it is simply
the way it played out, perhaps it is a question of limited space, or perhaps it is an expression of her parents allocation of material resources.
The otherwise strong norm, which dictates that children should have a
room, and preferably one each, and preferably one in every home, has
certainly not succeeded in Zenias family. Nor with her as she never indicates that she finds not having her own rooms unfair.
Being Recognised as Siblings

Much like childrens rooms, holidays are high on the list of priorities in
many families. It is a commodity often connected to generating a shared
narrative and to being viewed as belonging together. Holidays are organised, and through the organising, they materialise. Websites and catalogues are looked at. Families dream and negotiate: where does every-
44
one want to go on holiday? What can they afford? When can they go?
Who can come? Reservations are made and money transferred. Necessary equipment is obtained depending on the holiday destination. Bags
and suitcases are packed. Families travel together in cars, busses and
aeroplanes. They arrive at holiday apartments, summerhouses and
camping sites. And they consume ice cream and pizza, they go shopping
and swimming, buy souvenirs, take photos, and spend leisure time canoeing, mini golfing, bowling, on fishing trips or with a Play Station and
they visit Zoos and amusement parks. Not only do they bring back numerous (holiday) stories, they also bring back things and photos. And all
of it is part and parcel of building sibling relations. On holiday, we invest
both time and money in consumption, and through consumption we
establish and maintain a shared sibling narrative. Both parents and children make this investment. Children primarily invest time, while parents
invest both time and money.
12-year-old Lasse does not get to see his brothers much on a daily
basis, but on holidays they spend a lot of time together. They have many
grandparents who have summerhouses in different locations. The children travel to and between these destinations. Financially, the family
prioritizes having summerhouses where they can all meet up - and afford the tickets to get there. The boys themselves invest in the sibling
camaraderie that these journeys make possible.
When parents, grandparents and siblings prioritize holidays to the
extent that they do, it becomes even more important that everybody
participates. If you do not want to go, or if you allow other things to
stand in the way, the others may experience it as a rejection. Holidays
can generate disappointment and disharmony in the sibling group and
indeed the entire family if the financial investment is not met by the
social investment of all family members. For Sren, Juliane and Jon, all of
whom are approx. 18 years of age and all of whom are from long and
wide siblingships, this proves complicated. They are finding it difficult to
contribute to the shared investments in the holiday planning for the
coming summer. They are tempted by other things, e.g. Roskildefestiva-
45
len (a huge, annual music festival in Roskilde, Denmark), by interrail

travel as well as the Trans-Siberian Railway. While at the same time,
their families talk about trips to various summerhouses, Southern Europe and a bicycle-trip in Jutland. They would like to be part of it all and
do not feel like saying no to any of it, but they need to make it all come
together somehow. They want to, partly because they know that having
lots of younger siblings obliges: it obliges their parents to arrange holidays for everybody and it obliges them to go along. Partly, because
shared holidays bring them close to their siblings. A successful effort
pays dividend in the shape of sibling solidarity and it constitutes them as
a family of brothers and sisters.
When we go on holiday the group feeling is underpinned by other
people viewing the group as tightly knit by a strong family bond.
Strangers cannot see whether or not members of a sibling group have
always been siblings or if it is a recent constellation. Which is why holidays are great for generating a sense of communality. You are presented
as siblings by having identical nametags on your suitcases, by staying in
the same hotel, at the same camping site or in the same summerhouse
even using the same credit card and withdrawing money from the same
account is a material expression that emphasises the perception of togetherness. In exactly the same way as the nameplate on the HansenJensen-familys mail box.
Summery
Siblingship is embedded in materiality. Powerful and less powerful positions in siblingships are constituted by way of bits and pieces. Abundance and scarcity are important dimensions when siblings negotiate
their mutual positions, and when parents distribute material goods. The
way things are distributed and used as a framework for time spent together generates both satisfaction and disappointment. Previous experiences with and future hopes of having or not having, getting and not
getting, have an impact on sibling relations as ways of understanding
each other and as narratives about being together.
46
Materiality is a resource that siblings use. Their parents regulate

access to specific user patterns and the distribution of material goods.
This regulation takes place in the shape of continuous considerations of
how to distribute the material goods in a fair and just manner. And there
are different arguments involved in the distribution. Whether children
obtain a footing by way of possessions is important, as is gender. Age,
however, seems to be the most legitimate argument for an uneven distribution of goods. Both children and adults accept this as normal, and
this normality is reproduced in the execution of fairness and justice.
Normality also includes specific material goods and user privileges. Individual rooms and shared holidays are significant. Individual rooms or
defined spaces enable children to make distinctions between their siblings. When we use things collectively, especially on holidays, it
strengthens the sibling group, it can even shape sibling groups by way of
investments as well as in the meeting with and gaze of the outside world.
The British anthropologist Daniel Miller has inspired our approach and
understanding of materiality in the shape of his understanding of how
objects create subjects, as well as his claim that an integrated and inseparable relation is generated between objects and subjects. It is not merely a matter of subjects creating objects, objects are also co-creators of
subjects, and an integrated and inseparable relation between subjects
and objects is generated. Materiality actively participates in the aesthetic
order people create. Miller does not see materiality as representations
and symbols of peoples relation to the world, rather things become cocreators of people and social relations (Miller 2008). The Danish anthropologist Inger Sjrslev describes how people connect with one another
through things: Relations with different subjects friends, family members, present, absent and dead are maintained through relations to
47
different objects, whereby the lives of things and people merge

(Sjrslev, 2013: 60).
In the article, The Idea of Home A Kind of Space (1991), the American anthropologist Mary Douglas describes how a home is run by way of
a scale of justice and fairness (a mental economy). The regulatory systems have not been written down, but they are implemented by way of
the concept fairness, which is also a central distribution principle within
the household (Douglas, 1991:299). Douglas focuses on the relativity of
fairness, how it can change and is something that on the one hand is
negotiable, yet on the other hand it is also something that is embedded
in the rooms. Another source of inspiration is her attention to the importance of the distinction between for example in- and exclusion. Attention to the fact that siblings are shaped and recognised as siblings in the
meeting with their surroundings and by the gaze of strangers is also
central to the British sociologist Rosalind Edwards and her colleagues
(Edwards, et al 2006).
48
CHAPTER 3: MEDIATED INTERACTIONS
Chapter 3
Mediated Interactions
By Mads Middelboe Rehder
Before going to sleep at night, we would knock on the wall until either
he shouted good night or I shouted good night. Because the wall, you
can just knock on it His lamp, you could usually hear when he
switched it on or off. So Id be able to hear when he went to bed. The
walls are very thin (), (Frederikke, 18 years old)
Frederikke and her elder brother August, who has now moved out, grew
up in the same house with their parents, and they used to share a room
when they were younger. The door to Frederikkes room still has very
visible markings of her brothers nameplate from when they shared the
room. As they grew older, August moved into the room right next to
their old bedroom. He placed his bed against the wall between his and
Frederikkes rooms, with Frederikkes bed right on the other side. This
physical closeness enabled them to hear one another on either side of
the wall. In the mornings, Frederikke was also aware of her brother waking up because his lamp would make a clicking noise when switched on.
These experiences of being in close proximity to one another and being
aware of each others daily rhythms have changed because they no longer occupy adjacent rooms.
Their knocking on the wall has transmuted into written messages on
Facebook. Each day, they sit with their computers and write to one another either before going to bed at night or first thing in the morning. So,
when August writes good night in the evening and Frederikke replies
with good morning the following morning, they both refer to their
49
shared experiences. The trivial, everyday interactions, which they practiced face-to-face for years, have become a shared history which grounds
their mediated interactions. Writing each other on Facebook no longer
has to take place at the same time; this asynchronous media allows August to write good night and Frederikke to see it eight hours later and
only then reply.
They do not merely say good night and good morning to one another.
They also stay informed about what is going on in their lives by writing
to one another during the day. They exchange typical everyday doings,
such as what happened in school, who they spent the afternoon with,
what happened at work, or what homework Frederikke needs to do:
Sometimes, its just Hey, and Ill see it four hours later, and then Ill
reply, Hey, so its not necessarily long conversations sometimes its
just, How are you doing?, Im doing my science project, Is it boring?, Yeah, Okay, I guess Ill just get my bass out and play a little.
Sometimes we just have conversations like that. You dont get much
from them, but its practically every day that I have conversations like
that chatting on Facebook. You get a sense that hes out there, somewhere. (Frederikke, 18 years old)
These mediated everyday interactions can be understood as substituting
chitchats that would normally have taken place in their room, in the
kitchen, the hall, or on the couch in front of the TV. When siblings use
their computers or mobile phones to write or call each other and use
social media such as Facebook to interact by way of chats, wall posts,
likes, photos and comments, a mediated interaction is established. This
mediated interaction is woven into everyday life, taking its point of departure in existing experiences and shared history. These experiences
are central to understanding how simple exchanges can carry much
more weight than immediately presumed from the short messages.
50
Caring Interactions
Katrine is sitting at the desk in the living room, bent over her computer,
chatting on Facebook with her brother, who is sick. The old laptop
makes a lot of noise and she knows how to place it so that the worn plug
will light up. Katrine does not have a smartphone she can connect to
Facebook, and so she has to use her old laptop to go online, and it only
works at home or at school.
Katrine:
Brother:
Katrine:
Brother:
Katrine:
Brother
Katrine:
Feeling better?
Not really, but Nurofen helps
Too bad.
Did you stay at home today?
I am nothing but coughing and runny nose so
Well, most of the day
But had to hand in maths project
Bummer Hope you feel better! Okay
And then we just finished the report
Great
We miss you <3, its our gala tomorrow :)))
Katrine is 19 years old, and she has three siblings. Her parents are divorced. She has an elder brother, Mikkel, with whom she has both parents in common, and two elder sisters, Signe and Anne, from her fathers
previous relationship. Katrine lives with her mother, while Mikkel has
lived with their father since the age of 13, though recently he moved out.
Katrine and Mikkel are used to not spending weekdays together, but
they know each other really well, and they share a long history and lots
of experiences, memories and references.
Their experiences are framed by a sensuousness that is activated
when Mikkel writes I am nothing but coughing and runny nose. Katrine
has a bodily understanding of what her brother looks like when he is ill.
She has mental pictures of him in bed, with a runny nose. This connects
their written interaction to her sensory experiences and to her empathy
51
towards him, and thus the few words they exchange become a way of
practicing their emotional interconnectedness.
Young siblings have an embedded bodily experience of voices,
sounds, smells and physical expressions which afford them an intimate
physical and emotional frame of reference, which then constitutes the
resonator of their mediated interactions. Bodily expressions and memories are activated and enable the few actual words exchanged in these
mediated interactions to gain a sensed meaning and thus influence the
experienced togetherness.
By utilizing Facebooks chat function, the interaction between Katrine
and Mikkel is hidden from their parents, friends and other siblings. Nobody else in the room can see what they are actually doing on their computers, and although Katrines mother knows that she is on Facebook,
this is no direct indication that she is having a caring interaction with
her brother who is sick. In much the same way, the privacy of the chat
room makes it impossible for anyone else on Facebook to gain access to
their interactions, which enable the siblings to interact in a private manner. They are only recognized as siblings on Facebook because Katrine
has placed Mikkel in the category of brother in Facebooks systematisation of family relations, and because they have the same family name.
Becoming Visible as Siblings

When siblings use technology to keep in touch, it does not merely take
place by way of private interactions only visible to those included, but it
also happens via public interactions.
Public interactions cover social gatherings such as family gatherings
face-to-face, having friends over who then see the siblings together, or
interactions on Facebooks public platform, which includes public wall
posts, tags, comments, likes, and much more. These all constitute social
gatherings with a potential audience consisting of family, friends and
networks on Facebook.
On the other hand, mediated interactions such as phone conversations and chatting on Facebook do not have an audience, and thus they
52
provide quite different premises for intimacy and closeness without

having to consider the presence of other people. Private, mediated interactions allow for the establishment of stronger connections between
some siblings as well as the disconnection of other siblings, without it
necessarily becoming evident or explicit within the sibling group. Siblings tell each other different things, and they communicate differently,
but private interactions allow these differences to stay invisible.
Katrine interacts with her sisters, Signe and Anne, on Facebooks
public platform, which they use actively to keep in touch. Katrine only
lived with Signe and Anne for brief periods of time, eight-nine years ago,
when their parents were together. They do not share an experience of
living together that compares to Katrine and her brother Mikkels shared
experiences as they lived together for many years. Katrine is very keen
to maintain a relationship with her two elder sisters and she is happy
when they upload photos of all of them together or post something on
her Facebook wall. They all publicly comment on shared photos, and this
appears to generate a sense of community between them, which is also
visible to their friends, family and network. Katrine can look back down
over her timeline and view shared photos and affiliated interactions on
Facebook, including likes and comments others have added to their sibling activities.
Facebook makes her sisters visible to her friends and network, which
is not otherwise the case, because Katrine does not see her elder sisters
face-to-face very often. By categorising Signe and Anne as siblings on her
Facebook profile, it becomes easier to recognise them as siblings even if
they do not share a family name.
Thus Katrine and her sisters manage to create a sibling history to
underpin their siblingship. The visible social interaction and communication on Facebook becomes an element of their efforts to generate a
sense of community as well as a shared history and shared references.
Frederikke, whose elder brother has left home, explains that it is only
very rarely that her brother comments or likes any of her posts or pictures on Facebooks public platform. Their interactions primarily take
53
place as private chats. She has only ever experienced that he liked something on her Facebook wall twice. The latest like was that of her profile
picture, where she was dressed like a sailor.
Then this fantastic thing happened the other day. He liked my profile
picture. It was after the school party on Friday, where it was Pin-up
Girls and Sailors. And we thought that it would be cooler to dress up
as sailors. So I had bought waders and a full beard, and I think he
thought it was quite cool. (Frederikke, 18 years old.)
To Frederikke, this public like means that her brother is publically linked
to her photo on Facebook, showing both her and her friends that he has
seen the photo, and that he likes it. To understand the importance of
these electronic likes and comments, they could be viewed as presents
given as part of a mutual exchange that ties siblings closer together.
These likes are given and reciprocated among siblings as ways of tying
closer bonds through positive expressions. A like from an elder brother,
who very rarely interacts publically on Facebook, is thus considered a
great gift. However, Frederikke does not feel comfortable responding in
kind and instead sends him a photo via their Facebook chat to which he
does not respond. They do not talk or write about this incident, but it is
highly evident that her brothers like was very important to Frederikke,
but also that her reciprocation did not make him like or comment on any
of her other public postings on Facebook.
These public interactions on Facebook are not just important to the
siblings who are directly involved. Katrines brother Mikkel is not part of
the many public posts, likes, comments and tags that the sisters share on
Facebook. He is, however still able to keep up with what they post on
Facebook and thus gain an insight into elements of their everyday lives.
To Louise, Facebook is also a means of keeping up to date with her
sisters life. She describes how she can feel connected to her sister when
she follow her posts on Facebook, even without actively engaging in
interactions with her.
54
You dont always like or comment, but you know, just seeing it and
stuff it somehow makes it not so long ago since you last spoke Its
not that I speak to her that way Its just that you sort of know, what
is happening, that shes alive and stuff. Just, you know, whats happening in her life, and that might also be what I wanted to ask her about, if
she was in fact here, you know, So what are you up to these days?
Then you just read something, and then you feel that youve been in
touch. (Louise, 19 years old.)
By being physically separated, many siblings experience a sense of disengagement, of no longer having access to information about how the
other siblings live, and how their everyday lives unfold because they do
not meet face-to-face. By seeing photos, descriptions or small signs of
life as Louise describes it, they are afforded an opportunity to keep in
touch and get an idea of what goes on in other siblings everyday life
which they themselves are not part of.
Siblings use both public and private social interactions to stay connected. They are used to maintain connections between siblings but also
to build and strengthen siblingships. Online, siblings can be viewed as a
group on Facebook without meeting face-to-face, which in some instances reinforces the sense of connectedness and community.
Different Connections
Siblings can thus use mediated interactions as different ways of connecting. It also allows for different ways of interacting within the sibling
group. To some young people, mobile phone conversations are a means
of generating a strong sense of togetherness and caring.
Frederikke describes how her brother used to phone her after he
moved away:
55
I remember, right at the beginning, when my brother moved away, he

would call me every day. And it was every single day, and we did it for
quite some time, wed talk to each other on the phone every day, but we
never do it anymore. It was actually quite nice because he would just
say, What are you up to? Because it was like, you were used to seeing
each other all the time So it was just like still having the same everyday in some way because wed talk. You establish a stronger connection
when you talk to the person and sense their mood, which you dont really when you write. So I find that a little sad that I dont do that anymore. (Frederikke, 18 years old.)
Even though Frederikke expresses a wish to have more contact with her
brother via mobile phone because she experiences a stronger connection
that way, she does not phone her brother. She primarily stays in touch
with him on Facebook, just as she uses Facebook to keep in touch with
most of her friends. She rarely calls anyone even though she herself appreciates a phone call.
Katrine does not talk to her siblings on her mobile phone either. Nor
does she expect the others to keep in touch by way of mobile phones. Yet
in a group interview, it is revealed that her two older sisters, Signe and
Anne, talk to each other on the phone on a daily basis which Katrine
experiences as something very different from the way they interact with
her on Facebook.
Signe:
Mikkel:
Katrine:
Signe:
Mikkel:
56
So, do you phone each other every day? (asking Katrine

and Mikkel)
Me and Katrine? Not at all.
No, not at all.
I dont think, weve ever talked on the phone (to Mikkel)
No, not very often. But I generally dont talk very much on
the phone.
Signe:
Katrine:
Signe:
Katrine:
Signe:
Katrine:
Mikkel:
Signe:
() I mean, if Im bored, Ill always call someone. And its

always like my mother, father or Anne I should get better
at phoning my ()
Us (), (laughs)
But I think perhaps, I think, yeah, like, I dont really know.
Im not very good at
phoning friends. I always
end up phoning Anne.
(Laughs)
I talk to Anne three times a day, I think, when she answers
that is.
Right (laughs)
You can call me, Id like to ()
Yeah, thats it, I should get better at phoning you guys ()
Katrine and Mikkel are not part of the interaction the two sisters share
on their mobile phones. Thus they are excluded from parts of the social
interactions within the sibling group, which appears to be of a certain
character. Phone conversations, as opposed to, for example, Facebook
chat, require both parties to be present, and it usually only takes place
between two people. Furthermore, phone conversations are often considered closer and more caring, as explained by Frederikke.
Because phone conversations and chats are both private and hidden,
Katrine and her siblings have managed to interact internally in different
ways without the entire sibling group knowing. Technologically mediated interactions can thus be used publically to enhance and illustrate
siblingships, making them visible to others and consequently generating
a sense of community, which can also include those who may not actively participate in the exchanges. At the same time, mediated interactions
can also been seen to be excluding because they take place within a certain mediated framework.
57
Time, Place and Age

The possibilities afforded young siblings in relation to interacting and
connecting with one another without being face-to-face enable them to
spend time together when it suits them. Being physically present in the
company of siblings is no longer the only way to spend time together.
Interactions are no longer connected to a physical place, to timekeeping
or the calendar. They can play out at the same time (synchronously) on
media such as talk on mobile phones and Skype video chat, or they can
play out at different times (asynchronously) by way of continuous texting, Facebook chat or wall posts.
To siblings, interactions are therefore not dependent on whether or
not all siblings are online or offline at the same time. The term, syncline,
is used to describe an everyday that takes place both on- and offline,
simultaneously. It includes an understanding of technologically mediated and face-to-face interactions as ways of being together that are interdependent and supplement each other. The communication that takes
place offline, affects that which happens online, and vice versa. This enables sibling interactions to exist continuously, regardless of time and
place.
19-year-old Ari lives with his mother in Copenhagen. His sister also
lives in Copenhagen, but his older brother lives in Island. The way he
interacts with them differs. He uses Skype to synchronically video-chat
with his elder brother in Island, something they arrange by way of their
continued asynchronous communication on Facebook. They use Skype
to talk because Aris brother writes in Icelandic, and Ari is no longer
good at writing Icelandic, and so he prefers to talk with rather than write
to his brother. Ari communicates asynchronously with his Danishspeaking sister by way of small sound bites and pictures throughout the
day. The asynchronous messaging means that they never constitute an
interruption; rather they can be enjoyed when there is time. This accumulates into a lot of messages throughout the day sent via specific Apps
to which they both have access because they have the same kind of
smartphone. Calculations on Aris phone tell us that Ari and his sister
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share hundreds of messages each month. To Ari, the numerous sound

bites and pictures enable him and his sister to feel that they are a big
part of each others everyday lives, in the same way that the Skype conversations allow him to spend time with his brother, just hanging out as
he explains it, without cost to either of them.
The syncline everyday that many siblings inhabit thus allows them to
experience being an integrated part of each others everyday lives, even
if they do not live together or see each other face-to-face.
Yet this is not true for all siblings. Age and technological access are
central elements to being included in mediated interactions. To be on
social media such as Facebook and Skype, you have to be at least 13
years of age, which in principle excludes all children under the age of 13
from taking part in the interactions that play out on these platforms.
Access to mediated interactions is also limited by text messages and
mobile phones, as these conversations in practice require each sibling to
have a mobile phone of their own.
Nine-year-old Karl is not on Facebook, and he does not have a mobile
phone. His two elder siblings, Bodil and Kasper, who do not live together
on a daily basis, are friends on Facebook where they stay in touch in
addition to phoning and texting each other. Karl is not included in these
mediated interactions. His age and lack of access to technology mean
that Karl cannot partake in the interactions of his elder siblings, but because their interactions are not visible to him, he is unaware of the social
interactions that he misses out on.
11-year-old Ditte has two elder siblings who have both moved out of
the family home. She is not old enough to be on Facebook, and she does
not have a mobile phone. Yet as the youngest of her siblings, her parents
have allowed her to have a Facebook account. On Facebook, she is
friends with her two elder siblings, but in her experience, they do not
want to have contact with her. She is privy to the things they write to
each other on their Facebook walls, and everything else they post about
their everyday lives, but she experiences total exclusion because they do
not respond to her inquiries. And thus, she is neither included in her
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siblings public nor private exchanges on Facebook which limits her

interaction with them to their home visits.
Young people such as Ari and his siblings are capable of handling
their need for interactions on their own. Which is why they are not dependent on their parents creating the frameworks, routines or the physical proximity that younger children need. Both Karl and Ditte are excluded from their elder siblings mediated interactions but are unable to
act on their own to satisfy their need to be with their siblings. Thus, it is
not possible for all to partake in the syncline everyday, which enables
siblings to interact across time and space. In much the same way, parents are only rarely allowed to engage in the young peoples mediated
interactions. This means that parents cannot take part in or gain a direct
understanding of the social practice that unfolds when siblings interact
with one another via mobile technology and social media. Which is why
parents are not always privy to the inclusions and exclusions that take
place among siblings in mediated interactions.
Summery
Siblings, who are separated, use technologically mediated interactions to
connect, care for, and surface as small signs of life in each others everyday lives and to keep each other posted on everyday happenings. Chats,
likes, conversations, comments and uploaded photos enable young siblings to be a part of each others lives, across time and place. This flexible
form of interaction enables them to maintain a sense of togetherness on
a level that fits into their everyday lives.
The technologies available to siblings are of significant importance. It
is central to young people whether or not they have the same
smartphones with access to the same programmes and data, or whether
they have to be at home in front of a computer to go online and stay in
touch. Exclusions from mediated social interactions can easily occur, as
some siblings do not have the same possibilities as other siblings. This
makes separated siblings particularly vulnerable as mediated social
interactions afford them a unique opportunity to connect with one an-
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other. Because these connections take place in a social space that parents have little or no access to, they often go unnoticed by parents.
Mediated interactions among siblings can only be understood in relation to an offline context consisting of materiality, surroundings, shared
history as well as physical and sensed experiences. Syncline everyday
life is practiced as an interlacing of mediated and face-to-face interactions. Mediated interactions can become visible to others on platforms
such as Facebook, where siblings do not have to be physically present in
the same space to be viewed as an interconnected sibling group. But it
can also take place in private, in the shape of an invisible temporality
between individual siblings that does not involve anyone outside the
specific interactions. Social relations and practices will penetrate mediated ways of interacting. This means that we encounter different ways of
interacting and different technological modes of operation in sibling
constellations and internally within individual sibling relations.
This chapter is written with an analytical approach inspired by symbolic
interactionism (Goffman 1959). It springs from an interest in how young
siblings act and interact based on the meaning they afford mediated
interactions. In order to understand how mediated interactions are included in everyday life, we rely on the idea of syncline, which describes
an everyday life in which social practices take place in the shape of interlacing online and offline interactions, both synchronously and asynchronously (Rehder 2013). William Rawlins and Daniel Miller also inspire
our focus on relations as concurrent, communicative practices, whereby
continued reciprocal exchanges not only build but also constantly renegotiate close relations (Rawlins 2008; Miller 2011). Finally, our attention to the importance of the body in terms of the perception of technologically mediated interactions is inspired by Maurice Merleau-Pontys
corporeity, which emphasises that how our bodies perceive is the central point of departure for human perception (Merleau-Ponty 1994).
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CHAPTER 4: SIBLINGS BETWEEN SPACES
Chapter 4
Siblings Between Spaces
By Ida Wentzel Winther
Annika is 12 years old. She lives with her mother for nine days and then
spends five days with her father. 14-year-old Kirstine also lives at Annikas mothers house, and she spends seven days with each of her parents
and two younger siblings, seven and eight years of age respectively, who
both stay in one place all the time. At Annikas fathers house, there is
also a younger sibling, 6-year-old Jens, and currently, he is also subjected
to a shared parenting arrangement along the lines of seven days at each
place. Annika moves between homes and siblings each Monday and
Wednesday. Everything is meticulously arranged to allow her and her
siblings to spend most of their days together, in both places. At her fathers house, she spends five days with Jens, and at her mothers house,
she spends seven days with Kirstine. Christmas is celebrated at her
mothers house every other year, and at her fathers the rest of the time.
Every four years, they all spend Christmas together. Birthdays are similarly subjected to shared parenting arrangements. There are many systems simultaneously on the go, and they include the siblings of both
parents as well as their divorced families. Everyone is aware that you
cannot make sudden changes, as this will cause utter chaos all around.
All systems come together to form what could be termed a choreography
that includes many dancers. Annikas life on the move between several
homes and sibling-groups is not outstanding in Denmark, but a way of
living she shares with a great many other children.
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Bags
Bags are filled, bags are carried, and bags are emptied between her different home spaces. From a very tender age, Annika brought her bag to
kindergarten and now she brings it to school. Previously, she did not
bring many things, and she kept clothes in both homes. She still does.
Only now there are quite a number of special garments that she would
like to bring along, which is why she also moves an extensive part of her
wardrobe. The day before changing bases, Annika packs a small bag with
clothes and other items such as cleansing cream and a charger. Every
other weekend, 15-year-old Asbjrn travels across Denmark with his
siblings to visit their father. He always carries a huge bag with sports
gear, a badminton racket, clothes, school things, his computer, and numerous chargers. His siblings carry similar bags, though not as huge, and
they get annoyed that his bag takes up so much room on the bus. Despite
the difference in bag size, the children share a common fate in as much
as they have to pack and unpack their bags, they have to carry them, and
make sure that they bring everything from one place to the next. The
youngest one, Sofia, just turned seven when she started travelling across
Denmark with her siblings, who at the time were nine and twelve years
old. Sofia bag was heavy, and her siblings had to help her get it on and
off the bus, through the Central Station, as well as onto the regional and
local trains. Many children who catch trains on a regular basis will be
driven to school on Fridays, on account of the bags, others will drag their
bags from busses and city trains, and in some schools, they even have a
storage room for pupils weekend-bags. There are also bags in staircases
and bike-sheds waiting for parents to come by and pick them up. It appears to be primarily fathers who do the pick-ups. 12-year-old Zenia
lives in her bag. She usually carries whatever fits into her bag between
her two homes.
Bags circulate between homes and can be seen as a manifestation of
mobility. There has to be room for things in the bags and children must
be able to carry them. Previously, the father of Juliane, Ditte and Arendse
would pick up their bags from their mothers house, and then bring them
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all back a week later. However, in later years, they do their own packing
sometimes together and sometimes individually, depending on what
their timetables look like and what other activities they have planned.
Juliane and Ditte pack their bags routinely and speedily. They practically
throw their things into their bags. For Juliane, the most complicated
items are her books, because she is doing her A-levels at High School and
therefore has to carry lots of heavy books back and forth. But fortunately, her school is not far from her mothers house, and so if she forgets
something important, she can always pick it up from her mothers, which
is where most of her things are anyway. Dittes main items are computer
and school things etc., which she then carries back and forth. She has
clothes in both homes. Her parents only live a few miles from each other,
but she very rarely picks up forgotten things. She would rather do without, because she does not want her two homes to become mixed-up.
When Arendse packs, she goes about it slowly. Every little thing, every
piece of clothing is carefully considered. The weather may change, as
may her mood. Which is why she has to fit everything into her bag. And
she allocates time for packing.
In Between Time
Juliane gets annoyed because of her sisters slowness and steadiness,
and travelling between homes has always included a great deal of bickering between the two of them on subjects such as: packing-tempo, deciding on whether to go by bus or train, walking fast or slow, being late
or on time. Asbjrn is annoyed because of the train journey. He drags all
his stuff along, his two sisters are constantly on his case, and he feels
that the journey is nothing but wasted time. They have crisscrossed the
country for the last six years, and they know exactly who is in charge of
the seating, food, chocolate, and water. Everything is neatly orchestrated
from the moment they leave one home until they arrive at the second
home. They all agree that they do absolutely nothing on these journeys,
except spend five hours seated next to one another. They spend hours
and hours doing nothing, waiting in some sort of in between space. All
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three children want to visit their father, but all three of them also regret
having to say no to football matches and social events time and again
because their parents chose to set up home at either end of the country.
Moving between homes involves lots of routines for these commuting
siblings: how they pack and travel, how they leave and arrive, and how
they decide on who sits where (Winther 2015). Routines are characterized by being something you do over and over again; from being something that demands attention, certain actions can become integral parts
of your body movements and your pulse. Commuting siblings spend time
together in what could be termed in between time, which several of
them class as wasted time over which they have no say. Travelling together and being part of the same movement denotes a shared bodily
experience. Routes and tracks are shared with some siblings, but not the
siblings they leave behind. Asbjrn, Rigmor, Sofia, Juliane and Arendse
have travelling and not least being the ones others travel to or from in
common. They become acolytes in the street of their childhood.They
witness each others ways of being siblings in different family constellations, and despite their frequent bickering, they like the idea that at least
one other person is familiar with their entire life and family history.
Their shared physical journey affords them knowledge of each others
emotional shifts, which are also part of the commute. The in between
time becomes a zone of mutuality.
Ditte travels between her siblings on her own. She talks about having
breaks i.e. time without her younger brother and elder sister, who live
permanently in each their own home. Moving from one place to another
provides her with a break from her siblings. She is very fond of both of
them, but they also wear her down. Knowing that she will soon have to
move to her other home is tiring, yet, it also revitalises her, as she knows
that she is the one who is on the move, enjoying time away from the
others, when they start to get really annoying. She shares routines and
routes with no one. Moving between homes and siblings is a condition of
her life and in her own narrative, there is no indication that she thinks
it should be otherwise. She does, however, stress that it matters, and not
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least, that it is a hassle. Ditte moves from one home to the other every
two weeks. When she arrives at her other home for the first time, she
rings the doorbell. Naturally, she has a key, but having been away for
two weeks, she prefers to announce her arrival. Her mother is expecting
her and lets her in. They always have some sort of welcoming dinner.
From then on, Ditte uses her key. To Ditte, the act of arriving ringing
the doorbell, being welcomed and sharing a welcoming meal becomes
a ritual, which she does not have to reinvent each time, yet at the same
time, it marks a passing, an everyday rite de passage, - and not just for
Ditte, but also for every other member of the household. It is very different for Annika. She packs, moves and arrives all alone. No ringing the
doorbell and no welcoming committee. To her, moving between homes,
which includes her and her sisters arriving at or leaving their different
bases and their various siblings, are common occurrences. So, leaving
and arriving can become routine, but whichever way you go about it, it
includes an emotional repositioning.
In Between Being
Children move between homes, between parents and possible siblings,
whereby they also journey between the cultural logics, rules and routines of each household. They organise themselves with their bags; they
pack and unpack; they are aware of whom they will be spending time
with now; they orientate and re-orientate while commuting between
different ways of doing home and being siblings. Knowing these logics,
rules and routines and not least becoming co-creator of them requires
regular presence. Juliane has this to say about moving back and forth:
I think that its been hard to having to be Juliane in two different
places. And being part of a family, I mean, thats very much about more
or less taking each other for granted. Not in a negative way, I just dont
know how to put it. But where everybody belongs as much as everyone
else in the family that youre part of. And I certainly feel and I dont
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think its possible not to but being the one who moves back and forth,
you, just a little you belong just a little bit less. (Juliane, 18 years.)
From her point of view, it can hardly be any different. When she is at her
fathers, she asks permission before taking anything from the fridge, and
she will call to let him know if she is late coming back from somewhere.
Her younger siblings, who live permanently in each their own homes,
are 100% part of the family, and if they are not at home, the family
seems incomplete. But if Juliane is missing, which she often is, the family
will still seem complete. Karl and Selma live permanently in one home,
and their three elder siblings live there sometimes. The eldest, Cecilie,
who lives in London, appears to be a greatly appreciated guest when she
is home for Christmas. Karl, who moves nowhere, except onto the couch
when his elder brother comes home and takes over his room every other
weekend, is never considered a guest or anyone special.
The metaphor guest can be used in order to understand what it
means to belong less; to not be taken for granted; to be someone who
only counts on occasion; to be the one who comes and goes; and one
who perhaps, like Ditte, is welcomed by a reception committee. Being a
guest or visitor means being someone who arrives from the outside and
who is then afforded hospitality by a host. You can be a more or less
welcome guest, a tolerated guest, or a regular guest. To commuting children, their parents, whom they move between, are often the hosts. But it
can also be the siblings who live permanently in either home, and who
may therefore experience the children who are only there occasionally
as belonging less. The way to be a guest depends mostly on the degree of
hospitality you encounter. And your position as a guest will be reduced
the more familiar you become with the logic of the household, your siblings rhythms, and whether or not you take part in practical duties,
whether or not you feel that you belong and can actually inhabit the
space, and if it is possible for you to feel at home home oneself - there.
Commuting children can shift from the position of being potential
guests to being actual guest or reversely, to be included in the group who
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belong and occupy the space. The children do not refer to themselves as
strangers or unexpected visitors, but as newly arrived or re-arrived, as
not fitting in 100%, taking on the part of s/he who has to adapt, which
most of them finder easier when moving with siblings. We are talking
about a sense of being that unfolds in relation to someone else. Being
expected, of being important. Having to re-arrive and re-establish yourself is demanding. Some of the children mostly experience it as being
hard work, others enter into and are familiar with different ways of performing family and siblings, and several of the children feel at home in
both households.
In Between Spaces
Children who move between several homes are top-notch commuters
and logistics. They move between different family constellations and
they follow different patterns, routes, logics and routines. They take part
in different types of family and sibling choreographies, which demand
attention and a willingness to reorganize. As opposed to those children
who live permanently in one place, they have to stay alert to the choreography they are currently part of. The children commute between several spaces, between mothers house and fathers house. According to
Ditte, her home is her body, which then moves between spaces. Linguistically, parents have a right to spend time with their children in dedicated spaces, by way of, for example, holidays. Children often say, my
mothers got the autumn half-term, my fathers got Christmas, my
father got to have the boys, and my mother has no children this weekend. You get a sense of units floating around, being exchanged and
transported. The children are exchanged between places, with which
they are familiar and over which they hold more or less ownership, and
often they leave siblings behind who then move to other spaces, they
know absolutely nothing about. Because quite a few children with complex siblings groups never visit their siblings in their other homes. Their
shared parenting arrangements differ and are often not in sync. Periodically, they share an everyday existence and they share the condition of
68
not knowing the others other spaces, their routines, dynamics, and ways
of being siblings somewhere else. Carlo, who is seven years old, spends
half his time with his one brother at his mothers and the second half
with five other siblings at his fathers. Three of them have a different
father. Neither he nor his siblings know each others other parent, and
none of them have visited the others other home. Carlo would like to see
how his siblings live, to get a sense of what it is like there. But he does
not like to ask. It is quite different for Annika and her siblings. She will
sometimes pick up her various siblings, who all attend the same school,
and her brother Jens calls her siblings, who are not biologically related
to him, cousins. Her different spaces are intertwined.
Commuting children do not merely occupy several spaces, they also
occupy in between spaces. But what are in between spaces? Among other things, it is a sign that marks the space between other usually more
important signs, i.e. something that marks an ending as well as a new
beginning. A sentence will be rendered meaningless without the spaces
that separate the words, and it is imperative that such spaces are empty, i.e. that they carry no meaning other than being in between something. It is a pause, an interval. It emphasises that which surrounds it,
but it also carries value in and of itself. It is not an empty pause, mere
silence; it is a space of possibility, which allows for something else to
happen. The composer John Cage wrote a piece of music, 433, as one
long pause, which lasted four minutes and thirty-three seconds. He was
not interested in the absence of sound, but in everything that happens
while seemingly nothing happens (you hear nothing). In this seemingly
empty space, this in between space, there is always something to listen
to and see. In between spaces can be a space for pause, for rest, a space
between other spaces, a transition zone (a threshold), some third sort of
space (a heterotopia), which can turn into its very own, real and important, but more fluid space. The children move in transit between
spaces, and this transitory space becomes an in between space in its own
right, a fluid zone of in between, in which they have been placed, and
where many children spend time with their siblings. The transitory
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space is not merely a waiting space or waiting time, it is also a space

where they do things individually and together where in between being may occur a space, where they practice their ability to shape routes
and handle routines that are at times laborious and liberating.
Conditions and Fatigue

This moving in transit between siblings, family and homes is not something the children can change; it is a condition, which does not merely
set the individual sibling in motion, but also the entire sibling group.
Because when a sibling group moves so radically both in and out of
spaces, the entire siblingship is set in motion, which becomes quite obvious when Cornelius, aged seven, during an interview shouts out the
window, I cant play right now. Im being interviewed, Im a divorced
child, you know. His parents are a little surprised, because Cornelius has
always lived with both his mother and his father. He explains that his
two elder sisters commute between two families, and he has to do without them every third week. He is often separated from them and hence
he is a divorced child. Cornelius point is that the children who are left
behind also live two different everyday lives: one life when all siblings
are together, and another life when half of them are not there. Although
he also recognises that it is very different for himself and his brother,
who do not have to move, and his sisters who do. He has his base, at
which his sisters arrive and then leave again. He is not exhausted by all
the practical aspects, which these journeys entail, including the packing
of bags, the repetitive journey itself, having forgotten something, and not
least having to put your ear to the ground to get a sense of the atmosphere in one place, which will enable them to (re-)arrive there. However,
like all other siblings who are left behind, Cornelius and his brother Eigil,
also have to find a way of being together, they also have to go through
some sort of regrouping, in order to function without the siblings who
have moved elsewhere.
And on the subject of fatigue; 13-year-old Kalle has no stomach for
any more siblings; he has plenty as it is. 18-year-old Isak refuses to move
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back and forth, and 11-year-old Lasse is frustrated. Juliane, aged 18, is
looking forward to leaving home, because then she will no longer have to
live a fragmented existence, re-arriving in various family logics. Asbjrn
who is 15, finds constantly crisscrossing the country a waste of time, it
exhausts him. Ditte wants long intervals between her shared parenting
arrangements, in order for them to not have to talk about the next move
all the time. In spite of the fatigue though, most of the children appear
willing to engage in their siblingships. They keep on the move, between
homes, they re-orientate, both because their parents have decided that
that is the way it is going to be, and because otherwise they will lose the
shared closeness as well as their sense of the siblings who also live elsewhere. Being a sibling in many different ways has become a priority,
something they want, work for and are inclined towards.
Summery
Over time, journeying between homes becomes routine and something
not necessarily afforded any real degree of importance; it is rather experienced as a waste of time. Yet, these journeys, with the inherent coordination and practicalities, appear to be points of reference for being together. Although moving from one home to the next also frequently
frames arguments and irritations, the in between time and in between
space allow for an in between being, which can be used to share reflections on everyday issues, big and small. It is not a question of simply
moving between two points. With the distance of travelling, siblings can
become interpretive partners in the way they interpret life in their
shared home(s). As opposed to their parents, siblings who commute
together, gain insight into the everyday life and conditions in both
homes, which clearly makes their relationship special. At the same time,
they also move from someone and something (parents and noncommuting siblings as well as a space that contains everything that belongs in a home), to someone and something (other parents, siblings,
and spaces).
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Off hand, you would think that this is primarily a life condition for the
children who commute, but when one or more siblings move, it sets the
entire siblingship in motion, including the siblings who are left behind,
as they also live different everyday lives, depending on whether all siblings are present or somewhere else. Routines, movements and rituals
are important for all children, not only commuting children. They do,
however, become more conspicuous to children, whose families change
shape and are re-organised with new siblings. Some children will transform routine to rituals, for example, when they arrive at one home after
having spent time at the other home. Welcoming rituals may occur,
where the potential guest is welcomed by the host(s) and then goes from
being a potential guest to a fully-fledged member of the family. Something that can be experienced as having two homes. At the same time,
the freedom that comes with being a guest, i.e. having the right to leave
and not least knowing that soon, you will be going somewhere else, can
provide a space of mental and physical autonomy. Departures, goodbyes
and arrivals can turn into routine, but regardless of how they are practiced, they all require emotional repositioning. Central to many of these
children is the strict framing of their everyday lives, including fixed
shared parenting arrangements and specific movements, familiar to all
and quite difficult to change. At the same time, they are constantly on the
move, bodily on the move between spaces but also between ways of
being in the world.
This chapter was inspired by the Swedish cultural analysts Ovar Lfgren
and Billy Ehn, and particularly by their focus on routine in the book, The
Secret World of Doing Nothing (2010). The philosopher Jacques Derridas
concept of being a guest in the book, Of Hospitality (2000), informed the
discussion on guest, host and hospitality. The concept of regrouping is
taken from the historian Leonora Davidoff, who in Thicker than Water
Siblings and their Relations, 1780-1920 (2012), describes what happens
internally in a sibling group when one or more siblings disappear (she
72
talks about deaths), and how the siblings left behind have to regroup.
Our material does not cover deaths, but the condition of regrouping as
some siblings move in or out is similar in many ways. The concept of a
more fluid space heterotopia comes from Michel Foucault. In the
report, Children in Shared Parenting Arrangements (Brn i deleordninger
(2001), Mai Heide Ottesen et al.) reveal how siblings can be a stabilising
factor for children in shared parenting arrangements. Furthermore, we
draw on the logic of home, being able to inhabit, doing home and homing
oneself from Ida Wentzel Winthers book, Homeliness cultural phenomenological studies (Hjemlighed kulturfnomenologiske studier, 2006).
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CHAPTER 5: INTIMACY
Chapter 5
Intimacy
By Ida Wentzel Winther and Charlotte Palludan
Juliane is 18 years of age and has just left home. There is a photo collage
of her siblings on the wall in her new apartment. Of the six children she
has left behind. Her siblings live in two different homes, and she used to
move between them. Even though being separated from her siblings is
nothing new, she nonetheless experiences moving away from home as
generating new frameworks and possibilities for maintaining the relatedness she shares with her younger siblings. These are close relations
that matter to Juliane, and the photos on the wall are meant to illustrate
this and simultaneously, they become a continuation of these relations.
To Gry, who is the same age as Juliane and who has also just left
home, engaging in close relations with her siblings does not appear to be
a theme neither she nor her siblings contemplate. They appear much
more concerned with the new distance between them. One of her younger brothers proudly explains that he has only visited Gry once, and with
an ill-concealed irony he talks about how Gry is living the big city life.
She goes to restaurants to eat porridge, Jacob says while laughing his
head off, and we are to understand that this is a far cry from what everyone else in the family does.
That distance appears to be of much greater interest in Grys new life,
while the possibilities of intimacy are thematized in Julianes life, is most
likely due to their different stories. Gry and her brothers grew up together, in a shared family home. This current expansion of their siblingship, in terms of space and time, is due to the eldest sister leaving home.
As opposed to earlier, their intimacy is broken for a while, only to be
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CHAPTER 5: INTIMACY
rediscovered when Gry brings her washing home and moves into her
younger brothers room for a short spell. To Gry and her brothers, this
newly discovered possibility of distancing themselves from their sibling(s) is exiting, while to Juliane it is the possible re-establishing of intimacy that attracts attention.
Juliane has two homes. She used to move between the two and thus
she is greatly experienced in what could be termed exchangeable relations. Being with some of her siblings, always meant being far away from
her other siblings. For further information, see the previous chapter, In
Between Spaces. Throughout the last 14 years, Juliane has established,
re-established and balanced sibling relations in the tension field between distance and intimacy. To her, the novel thing about leaving home
is more related to having a space that can contain all her sibling relations. Establishing a place where her siblings can meet each other in
much the same way they meet in her photo collage; her own space,
where she can continue to invest in the shared intimacy with her siblings, who are all very important to her. And experience tells her that
these relations have to be continually maintained.
Gry and her siblings recognise the importance of intimacy and a
sense of connectedness, but in their lives it is obviously much more related to a sense of naturalness and continuity. This is expressed and
smartly maintained - by the younger brother as he casually talks about
Grys distant life, and when he effortlessly and with a big grin talks about
her visits to the family home. When Juliane explains about her experiences, she emphasises how enjoying close sibling relations is linked to
the necessary efforts made by all involved. By way of example, she is
very explicit in explaining that while living at home, she was adamant
not to give up moving from one home to the other, to see her younger
siblings, even if it was quite laborious at times. From Julianes point of
view, being present is a prerequisite for maintaining intimacy.
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When Intimacy Becomes Intimidating

Juliane is very aware of how primarily her mother and her siblings
mother have made an effort to maintain the interconnectedness between
the children. By way of example, her mother encouraged the children to
tell each other what they have been up to during the time they did not
spent together. And the mother of her younger siblings encouraged the
children to do their homework together and share evening baths. For a
long time, Juliane has been aware of the possibilities lodged in creating
opportunities for closeness herself rather than adhering to their parents
wishes for a certain kind of intimacy. Because it can, to the detriment of
all intentions, seem intruding and somewhat forced when parents interfere too much and overdo things. We call this parenting practice of being
too much, mothering. As is indicated, we consider it a feminine practice,
with the potential of being performed by both men and women. However, throughout our material, it is particularly prominent in relation to
how children talk about their mothers and stepmothers. The wish for
intimacy is pushed too hard and tends to become intimidating instead.
This is also a theme in 17-year-old Peters story. He talks about how
siblingship is not just something that is there for the taking, it contains
relations that you have to want, and they may also come to an end. Peter
has himself toned down his relationship with one of his brothers. Despite his mothers efforts to bring her children together on a regular
basis, Peter finds the relationship between himself and one of his brothers chilly. They have moved in different directions, both physically and
emotionally, and Peters attitude towards his brother is best described
as distancing rather than distant. Distancing describes a more explicit
intention. Peter does not say anything about how his brother experiences their relationship. Peters mothers efforts and eagerness to maintain
a sense of intimacy within the siblings group can possibly, and mostly
likely unintentionally, be experienced as intimidating and thus it supports Peters need for distancing.
However, parents preoccupation with upholding intimacy and a
shared history between children can become too comprised and poten-
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tially suffocating if the orchestration of closeness is not sufficiently sensitive to the processes that children themselves generate. Perhaps the
act of mothering is particularly prominent in situations where children
are not allowed sufficient time to readjust, to find each other again, after
being separated, and when the childrens own emotional room for
manoeuvring is limited. There are many good reasons why parents may
feel the need to speed things up, intensifying the time children spend
together, including if their children are regularly or soon to be separated
again. However, if this is at cross-purposes to the childrens need to balance intimacy and distance, the will to facilitate intimacy may instead
lead to a distancing between the children, and the children may well
experience it as intimidating.
Parents Contributions to Balanced Intimacy

Whereas Juliane believes that she is strong enough to create her own
relationships with her siblings, 11-year-old Liv would actually like to
involve her parents. She considers having to create relatedness with her
newly acquired sister, who is the same age as herself and the daughter
of her fathers partner, a huge task. At first, Nanna moves in to Livs
room. Not only do they have to share the remote control, the dining table
and the coat rack, they also have to share a bedroom. Liv finds this complicated. They are very different, and Liv is having problems maintaining
the peace and quiet she needs. She would like to be able to withdraw and
only deal with Nanna in pleasant and inspiring doses.
At the same time, Liv has to share a bed with her mothers partners
daughter, when she visits them. Which is something she does effortlessly
and experiences as easy to do. In Livs life, apparently identical demands
of intimacy are experienced as intimidating in one setting but not in
another setting. Perhaps it is first and foremost due to the girls different
personalities, but it is also possible that previous history and future prospects play a part. Nanna is moving into Livs childhood home, with the
prospect of the beginnings of a new family. Liv visits her mothers partner and his daughter without any of them expecting the girls to get any
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closer than that. In other words, the spatial proximity and the tempo in
which relation building is expected to take place differ greatly.
Liv needs the concrete involvement, mediation and regulation that
her father and Nannas mother contribute. She also needs to reflect on
and talk to her mother about her relation to her new sister, Nanna.
Without this there can be no balancing of intimacy and distancing, which
is how long-term intimidation is avoided. As we have shown, the interference of mothers (and fathers) can border on mothering, but it can also
be decisive and necessary in order to establish a balance. However, all
adults are not always aware of the risk of intimacy turning into intimidation, i.e. they are not aware of when their help is required, because
adults are not always privy to information about potential problems.
Seven-year-old Carlo spends every other week with his brother and
father, his fathers partner and the partners three children. This home
displays no apparent expectations that the children should build intimate relations across existing sibling groups. The children all have separate rooms and they are still considering whether or not they should
refer to themselves as one big family. Nonetheless, the missing key in the
bathroom door is important in Carlos life, because he finds it potentially
intimidating. He is afraid he might be embarrassed. Carlo as the youngest child can see no obvious way to change the situation and he does
not share this information with the adults. Which renders them unable
to help solve the problem of an absent key. If he asked for a key, it could
signal a wish for distance, and that would be wrong, because he would,
in fact, like to be closer to his new cohabitants.
Carlo enjoys having the other children in his home, and he sees many
opportunities for closeness and interconnectedness. While recognising
his own boundaries, Carlo would also like to insist on more intimacy, as
it does not simply happen out of the blue in a busy everyday existence
marked by distance. Different homes every other week, different biographies and different parents are three significant social and physical
distances, which frame the shaping of interrelations between Carlo and
the other children. Add to this the fact that his parents, as opposed to
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those of Juliane, Peter and Liv, choose not to be actively involved in establishing intimacy between the children. In other words, there is no risk
of mothering in Carlos home, which leaves it up to the children themselves to establish the degree of intimacy, Carlo dreams of.
And thus, Carlo becomes more dependent on the older childrens will
to and engagement in fulfilling his wish for greater intimacy. Carlo is
lucky in the sense that several of the older children actually engage and
invest, as we saw with Juliane, in establishing close relations to the siblings involved. It is primarily Carlos new siblings who take an active part
in this relational work. Carlo is already close to his elder brother, with
whom he shares both parents, as they always live together and they
travel between homes together. An experience that affords them the
opportunity to build a shared narrative tied to a shared time and a
shared space. It is a kind of intimacy not unfamiliar to Juliane.
Ruptured Intimacy
Being the two siblings out of a group of seven in all, who come and go,
and who live with the fact that their other siblings are in their respective
homes, is a condition for both Juliane and her sister Arendse. As opposed
to their other siblings, who know only one home-logic and one type of
intimacy, Juliane and Arendse are stretched between different kinds of
intimacy. In their experience, the closeness and intimacy they share with
siblings in one home is more of a natural given than the closeness and
intimacy they share with their siblings in the other home. They stay in
one place more often that the other. Here they come and go, their friends
live in the neighbourhood, everybody is a busy bee, and they rarely eat
together. But sometimes, inadvertently, they still end up slouching on
the couch and watching a film together, or going to swim classes together, because that is just the way it pans out, when you belong together,
which they do. This type of intimacy is much like the type of intimacy
Sren, who is 18 years old, categorises as being everyday-siblings. It is a
type of intimacy that arises when siblings spend much time together,
look after one another, slouch on the couch together and throw each
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CHAPTER 5: INTIMACY
other out of the bathroom. They are coupled by way of an everyday

rhythm. At their second home, Juliane and Arendse have no friends and
they are not part of the local community. When they spend time there,
their zone of engagement limits itself to their siblings and close family
ties to a much greater degree, with everybody eating dinner together
and telling each other stories that underpin their belonging together.
This type of siblingship is much more like an intimacy project.
Neither Juliane or Arendse have ever talked about these different
ways of being siblings, but throughout their entire childhood, both of
them have moved between different types of intimacy, which over time,
have settled in their bodies as well as in their siblings bodies. For Juliane, it has resulted in her ability to connect and disconnect. According to
Juliane, she is really adept at quickly getting a sense of the atmosphere
and then adapting to the given relations. At the same time, she places the
relations she has left on hold. She detaches herself, as she cannot be
mentally and emotionally present in two places at the same time. The
intimacy she shares with one set of siblings, demands that she distances
herself from her other siblings by placing them in a temporary parenthesis. The only sibling she never places in a parenthesis is Arendse, which
is most likely the primary reason why it is her relation to her sister that
provides her with a type of intimacy, we could call verbal fist-fighting, i.e.
bickering, irritation and squabbling. See also the chapter on Conflictual
Closeness.
Interwoven Intimacy with Siblings as Actors

Some children retain a sense of intimacy across their otherwise fragmented sibling-existence. One of them is 12-year-old Annika. She sees all
her four siblings as entangled even if they do not share the same address. Annika does not disengage, neither practically nor mentally. She
weaves all the threads together. Her younger siblings on both her fathers and her mothers side, all go to the same school, and Annika will
pick them all up and walk them to one of her homes. In one home, she
also has a sister called Kirstine, whom Annika experiences as her closest
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sibling. They do things together, regardless of whether or not they are

together in one home or stay with their other parents. Annika and
Kirstine maintain their relations independently of the spread across time
and space.
Another girl, 13-year-old Christine, also insists on an unbroken intimacy, at least mentally, although her elder brother, Sren, only rarely
stays at home with her and their father. She does not call herself an only
child, she is a live-alone-child, and thus she reveals that they are connected and close, regardless of whether or not he is present. Sren
agrees and feels very close to Christine, a relation he maintains by way of
prioritising trips to cafs and other ways of spending a nice time with his
sister. He actively chooses to spend time with his sister, because he finds
it necessary, as they do not share an everyday existence in the same way
that he shares an everyday existence with his everyday-siblings at his
mothers house. Experience has shown Sren that his sibling intimacy
with Christine will only ever be created, preserved and maintained if
they do something themselves; if they choose to spend time together.
They spend time together at their shared home, but because both of
them have reached a certain age, these days, they frequently meet up
away from home. Peter has also experienced that it is possible to choose
to spend time together and thus maintain close relations to siblings in
spite of break-ups and distance. At least in relation to his 15-year-old
sister, Maria.
They are siblings, but they only lived together for a few years when
they were teenagers, before their parents split up again. They shared
great intimacy during those years, and they insist on maintaining that
closeness despite their parents divorce. They do not need help from the
adults or from their other siblings. In addition to Maria, Peter has other
siblings, who do not share his relation to her. But according to Peter, he
and Maria are very close and he loves her. When Sren and Christine and
Peter and Maria manage to maintain a strong relation and avoid distancing, it is very possibly down to Sren and Peters age, but also to their
active efforts. Natasja is a third teenager, who engages in similar efforts.
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Natasja and her brothers have been separated because of social

events in their family and their parents inability to take care of them.
The three siblings now live in three different places. Their sibling intimacy has been rendered homeless. Despite difficult circumstances, Natasja creates situations where she can spend time with her younger
brother. Her younger brother does not have the same possibilities.
The younger children in the families are at the mercy of their parents
or other adults for help and facilitation, which will always be orchestrated around the adults view of how much/little time children can/should
spend together. Younger siblings, like Annika or Christine, can also
choose to spend time together with siblings they would otherwise be
separated from by both time and space, but it requires their parents
agreeing to an interwoven family structure, despite divorce, as in Annikas family, or that elder siblings take responsibility and thus take care of
younger siblings in public spaces , outside the family structure, as in the
case of Christine. As also described in the chapter, Mediated Interactions,
the older children in particular are able to phone, text and contact each
other, without ever engaging their parents. Finally, the older siblings,
who move out of the family home, can ensure that sibling intimacy is not
rendered homeless. Like Juliane, they can offer their own new abode as a
meeting place for siblings, where intimacy can be established and preserved.
Summery
Intimacy is a central phenomenon in sibling relations. It comes in many
different varieties and is shaped by children when they share an everyday existence and create narratives about what they do as siblings. The
effort to establish a sense of intimacy is born both by the childrens individual hopes as well as their parents and siblings expectations and demands for intimacy. Demands and hopes are each others prerequisite
and change over time in step with changing circumstances and life stories. When children regularly move between different sibling groups and
families, they rarely find a safe haven, where there is no apparent de-
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mand for intimacy. They have to stay constantly aware of their efforts to
establish closeness and intimacy first in one place and then in the next.
In other words, intimacy is established inside current and highly complex family constellations. Some children handle this complexity by way
of establishing blinds and detaching themselves from one set of relations
only to attach themselves to another set of relations. Other children are
afforded the opportunity to interweave sibling groups and accompanying demands and hopes for shared intimacy. All of them are concerned
with balancing relations in order to establish a sense of intimacy that
does not become intimidating while simultaneously ensuring a distance
without distancing. Parents also get involved. Directly by way of practical involvement and facilitation of sibling intimacy. Indirectly by respecting that intimacy can be tiring and therefore occasionally rejected. Parents efforts have to be as balanced as those of their children. Most parents are eager to establish the best possible balance, but there appears
to be a danger of their engagement losing sight of the childrens perspective and participation. Not only parents but also older siblings are seen
to take responsibility. They make themselves available with the added
bonus of intimacy training, as they move shoulder by shoulder with their
sisters and brothers.
In her book, Personal Life, the British family sociologist Carol Smart
points to emotional engagement and love as central aspects of family
relations, something only sporadically clarified in classical sociology,
however (Smart 2007). Smart recommends that we intensify sociological and anthropological studies of how love works within different
types of relations, for example sibling relations. This recommendation
and presentation of a research question includes the drive to understand
how intimacy is practiced in the concrete, practical and close everyday
life, which constitutes social cultural processes. How is this love expressed and afforded meaning in everyday processes by way of talking
and being together? When researchers take up this challenge and clarify
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intimacy in sibling relations, we contribute to the visibility of emotional

engagement as an important and dynamic part of social relations. And
thus we counter the tendency to view emotions as mistakes and dissonance in reason-borne arguments. The Swedish cultural researchers,
Johan Frykman and Orvar Lfgren, put it another way, as they view emotions as an ambiguous phenomenon, which takes place between people,
and which should be viewed in light of the relations they are part of.
Emotions should not be analysed separately from cognition, belief and
thought. Because emotions are part of our human life-world, as are our
thoughts and interactions with others (Frykman & Lfgren 2005). This
makes emotions a useful point of entry when we want to understand the
relations and everyday life of siblings.
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CHAPTER 6: CONFLICTUAL CLOSENESS
Chapter 6
Conflictual Closeness
By Mads Middelboe Rehder
you always feel that you have someone close to you, and someone
who can help you you never feel, you know, all alone We know
each other really well, and because we love each other so much, we
also fight a lot. (Louise, 19 years old)
Louise, who is 19 years old, grew up with her big sister, Benedikte. They
have a good relationship but engage in constant bickering. As is implied
in Louises statement, this conflictual interaction is perceived as a natural part of their close relationship.
When siblings experience emotional closeness, friction will occur,
which is often coupled with a physical closeness. Friction occurs, physically, when two bodies move in relation to one another, while being
pressed closely together; this creates a frictional resistance which generates heat and energy. Sibling relations are constantly moving, boundaries are being marked, and there is a continual and reciprocal testing
where they experience and note similarities and differences, something
we will develop further in the chapter, Mobile Positions. It is through this
testing and continued movement that sibling relations continue to develop and change, but it is also this close movement that generates heat
in the shape of conflicts and separateness as well as a special kind of
heat in the shape of increased closeness and a sense of togetherness.
Liv is 11 years old, and she spends equal time at her fathers and her
mothers places. She is her fathers only child and every other week, she
would be alone with him. But a few years back, her fathers partner and
the partners daughter, Nanna, moved in with them. Now, when Liv stays
85
with her father, Nanna, who is the same age as Liv, is also there. There
have been many conflicts and arguments between Liv and Nanna, and
this has been of great concern to the girls themselves as well as their
parents. However, over time, the arguments have lessened, and they
have grown closer, and now, Liv considers Nanna her sister.
I mean, when youre siblings, you can get really mad at one another,
and then, well, you know you still love each other, inside, and when
youre friends you have to be a little more careful siblings, theyre just
a lot closer than friends, I mean, youre just so much closer, even if I
havent known Nanna for as long as I have some of my friends, its like,
me and Nanna are still closer than I am with them (Liv, 11 years old)
To Liv, close sibling relations are about not having to be (excessively)
careful because the relation is less fragile. Because Nanna is always
there, and she will not disappear just because they fall out, which affords
the two sisters time and opportunity to become friends again after a
fight. This constant closeness, however, also enables friction between
them to build up and erupt in regular, conflictual clashes. These clashes,
and not least the fact that they will not destroy their relationship, are
important reasons why Liv is now able to regard Nanna as her sister. It
also means that they have established an emotional closeness. They
needed time to establish the relationship they now have, and their conflictuality helped clarify the strength of their relation, and it has enabled
Liv to develop a close and loving relationship to Nanna.
Markus and Christian are six and seven years old, respectively. They
have two older brothers: 11-year-old Morten who lives with them, and
Paw who is 14 and away at a boarding school. Markus and Christian are
close in years, and they spend much time together. When describing
what being siblings means, they talk very specifically about how they
regard fights, teasing and kisses as central elements of being siblings.
86
Christian:
Markus:
Christian:
Markus:
Christian:
Interviewer:
Christian:
Markus:
Interviewer:
Markus:
Interviewer:
Markus:
Christian:
Interviewer:
Markus:
I work to make them [siblings] happy.

So do I sometimes Sometimes they tease me.
They do tease.
Yeah, sometimes we fight because were angry with each
other, and sometimes were just messing about.
And Morten he just leaves when we get angry with each
other, then Morten just walks by and hits us.
Will he also hug and kiss you sometimes?
Yeah!
Yeah. A lot. He often does that to me.
He often kisses you?
Yeah. Especially the back of my neck. Its because Ive just
had my hair cut.
Do you also kiss your friends necks?
No no
No.
In other words, brothers are people you kiss?
Yeah. And hug.
For Christian, Markus and Morten, interactions appear to be of a physical

nature. Their age links their emotional closeness to a bodily closeness,
and their experiences of conflicts and love are easily revealed through
bodily expressions.
Frictions between Markus and Christian result in concrete actions
that are interwoven; it is exactly the duality of love and conflict that
generates the sense of security that lessens the danger of being teased or
hit because you also receive kisses on the base of your neck. This also
means that their interrelation is constantly moving, as these intense
expressions are practiced, and their relational dynamics thus perpetually changed.
Siblings are often specifically positioned in relation to each other
because their relations reveal exactly what they have to do to tease and
annoy but also please one another. This knowledge also strengthens the
87
experience many siblings have of being close. They can become each
others closest confidantes, sticking together and helping each other out,
exuding a closeness, which William Rawlins in his studies on friendships
describes as an Inner Circle. Inside this Inner Circle, siblings can stand
shoulder to shoulder, looking out on others, who will be perceived as
being less close, while they experience their own positioning as a stable
and safe relation.
Having lived together and having shared a physical proximity will
often be of importance to the emotional closeness of siblings. Once they
have lived together, they will share a frame of reference as well as experiences and memories, which they can draw on and talk about. Conflictual situations can be called upon as memories that form the basis of an
emotional closeness in later life. Arguments and confrontations can
awake strong feelings, and when situations are recalled, these strong
feelings will confirm the emotional closeness of siblings as well as the
strength of their relation. Furthermore, the narratives about such situations will often include descriptions of the individual siblings particular
characteristics, and thus they also become a concretisation of unique
differences and similarities between the siblings in question. Thus, conflictual situations also function as accentuations of sibling similarities
while simultaneously stressing their uniqueness and differences.
History of Friction
When siblings spend time together, conflictual material is continuously
accumulated. By sheer repetition, little everyday incidents will build up
and generate tension within a history of friction, which can suddenly be
expressed by way of arguments and confrontations.
Asbjrn who is 15, Sofia who is 13, and Rigmor who is 17 years old
are used to traveling together between their parents homes in Jutland
and on Zealand. They travel together, and they stay with their parents
together. The train ride is routine to them, as are the conflictual situations that often occur on this journey by way of allocating seats in the
train carriage. Seat allocation is part of their history of friction, and frus-
88
trations and disagreements about who sat in the aisle seat last time are
touched upon and afforded new strength as the problems arise again.
Sofia:
Asbjrn:
Sofia:
Asbjrn:
Sofia:
Asbjrn:
Im in the seat in there.

No, I want to sit there. I was in the aisle seat last time.
So was I.
No! I was in the aisle seat. This is not fair. I was in the aisle
seat last time.
() I wont let you sit here.
You cant just say that because I had the aisle seat last
time.
And thus, accumulations, of what may offhand appear as insignificant

conflictual material, will lie hidden away only to resurface days, weeks
or months later. This history of friction enables some arguments to almost become routine, and as such they may appear to be intense, yet
they are quickly over and done with.
Even if Asbjrn feels frustrated by his sisters ganging up on him in
relation to the allocation of train seats yet again, the conflict quickly
settles. Shortly after being really upset, Asbjrn is in the window seat
massaging Rigmors feet while talking and sharing the chocolate they
brought along.
Fighting among siblings is often based on their frustration with being
interdependent. In connection with her sibling research, Rosalind Edwards emphasises how frustrations do not merely occur as a consequence of wanting to be independent and free of ones siblings, they also
arise as a consequence of feeling left out of the sibling community. Friction is thus accumulated as an integral part of being interdependent,
both willingly and unwillingly, and when neither independence nor dependence is a satisfactory state for all to be in simultaneously. Instead,
the different wants are negotiated in a continuing history of friction,
which concurrently brings potential conflicting situations to light. In
sibling groups the need to be independent will sometimes arise simulta-
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neously with other siblings need for proximity. These opposing movements generate friction as an acceptable way of being together is negotiated. The negotiations come in different shapes, but often, as was the
case with Asbjrn, they will be handled by way of an open and emotional
conflict, after which the dispute is put aside and closeness can be reestablished.
Several siblings describe how they want to be able to have arguments
without their parents interfering to try and make them stop, as it denies
them the opportunity to fully vent their accumulated frustrations as well
as the opportunity to express themselves emotionally.
This is something Arendse and I have complained about a lot. You
know, this thing about not really being allowed to argue, and we actually dont argue that often. But when we do argue, its been over completely immaterial things. You know nothing more than just splitting
hairs over something, really. I remember that weve sometimes sat together and complained about not being allowed to finish our argument
and be upset. Sure, it creates a bad atmosphere, but why is that not allowed? Its part of being siblings after all, and having to spend so much
time together. That its okay to bicker a little because thats also part of
finding out when youre being over the top, and when its just because
were siblings. Of course, its okay to have adults saying, heres where
we draw the line, but children should also be allowed to find that line.
(Juliane, 18 years old)
18-year-old Juliane and 15-year-old Arendse have grown up together
and are used to spending a lot of time together. As far as Juliane is concerned arguing is unavoidable when they spend so much time together,
and it is not something that should be interrupted. The physical closeness entails an accumulation of friction between Juliane and Arendse, as
was the case with Asbjrn and his sisters. Juliane describes how their
arguments may be about something that to others may seem insignificant, like having to wait for ones sister before leaving the house togeth-
90
er. But because these small, insignificant things are allowed to occur by
way of continual repetitions, friction will build and culminate in a conflictual situation, which is experienced as necessary. Conflicts between
siblings who spend much time together are experienced, as both Liv and
Louise point out, as not all that serious. Conflicts and arguments thus
occupy a natural space between siblings. Which is why it is central to
Juliane that she and Arendese are allowed to set their own boundaries
and solve their mutual conflicts without their parents interfering. In
much the same way that Asbjrn and his sisters are left to their own
devices when travelling between their parents. However, this pattern
requires siblings to spend time together on a regular basis which is why
changing the frames within which siblings spend time together may have
consequences.
Having moved out of the family home, Louises sister, Benedikte, tries
hard not to get into arguments with Louise, and as a result they have
fewer arguments, but Louise also expresses that she experiences their
relationship as being more superficial.
Yeah, well it might be more positive because we dont fall out as often.
But () as it gets more positive, in my opinion, it also becomes more
superficial But because, when shes here, we try to not get into arguments because we dont see each other that often but its not like I
miss arguing with her, it was just something that happened because
everything else was good. (Louise, 19 years old)
The fact that Louise and Benedikte no longer argue can, from Louises
perspective, be experienced as a result of her efforts to restrain her frustrations and grievances with her sister, which simultaneously generates
a distance between them. Making an effort not to fight is also touched
upon by other siblings who do not live together, who argue that it is
because their parents expect the family to have a nice time when they all
finally get together. Though at the same time, the children also express a
desire not to spend the limited time they have together arguing. The
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problem with this scenario is that friction does not evaporate; instead it
becomes illegitimate to express the frustrations and grievances that
arise, as there is no time or space to have arguments and make up before
the family members have to go their separate ways again.
As a consequence, Louise experiences a sense of superficiality sneaking in because she, her sister and the rest of her family do not want them
to spend the limited time they have together arguing. Louise and her
sister do not share continual time together in the way that Liv, Asbjrn
or Juliane do with their siblings which is why they do not want to fall out
when they do get to spend time together.
Separation and Friendship as Alternatives to Conflicts

Conflicts and fighting among siblings can sometimes escalate out of control. Friction must be balanced in order to maintain an emotional closeness. Which is why the physical frames may have to change in order to
allow the friction among siblings to find a level that allows them to maintain an emotional closeness.
Conflicts are the reason why 20-year-old Jon and 18-year-old Isak
have not lived together for many years. They have chosen to live with
their mother and father, respectively, because there are too many conflicts when they live together, and in their experience, being emotionally
close excludes engaging in too many conflicts.
No, but weve always argued a lot, or not like, but you know, how
brothers fight and argue, so its better if we only see each other in
smaller doses. We also have practically the same friends which is quite
good fun, that is at school, we hang out quite a lot at parties and stuff,
its not that were like, best buddies () But were like friends and like
brothers (). (Jon, 20 years old)
Jon and Isak only spend limited time together within a family frame, i.e.
on their weekly visits to the other parent. This frequently takes place on
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weekdays, which means that they do not have time to watch a film, but
rather their time together focuses on less time-consuming activities,
which are quite similar to the things they do with their friends. They
watch TV-series, comedies or listen to music, as these are areas where
they share preferences and interests. The two brothers are aware of not
spending too much time together within the family framework as they
cannot spend more than one evening together before friction between
them leads to actual confrontations. On the other hand though, they do
enjoy the evenings they spend together, and they both make an effort to
avoid confrontations, which has made it possible for them to engage in a
friendly relation.
That Jon and Isak are able to establish this kind of time together,
where they both thrive, is partly due to the flexibility of their family.
They have been able to live in different places, and they have also been
allowed, on more than one occasion, to change abode. These changes
have been due to several practical issues, and because both brothers
have wanted to try living with the other parent for a while. The family is
flexible enough to allow their voices to be heard when decisions are
being made in relation to where they will live and how best to support
their sibling relation. This differentiates their sibling relation from that
of Liv and Nanna as they had to find a way of living together, but their
relation also differs from that of Juliane and Arendse who regard their
conflictuality as a necessary aspect of being siblings.
For most siblings their home, their family, the close physical proximity and spending time with their siblings are givens that cannot be
changed which makes finding different ways of handling friction and
conflictual situations integral to their emotional and physical closeness.
Jon states that he and Isak are like friends which is concurrent with
the comparison between friends and siblings as also expressed by Liv,
Louise, Christian and Markus because Jon has to be more aware when he
is with Isak as their relation cannot withstand their conflictual confrontations.
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Markus, who is six years old, briefly describes the difference between
friends and siblings by way of physical closeness: Brothers are always at
home, best friends are not. Jon and Isak are not always at home at the
same time, but with their friends they can spend weekends and holidays
together, as long as the presence of their friends ensures that they do not
get close enough to generate conflictual situations. Then again, within
these friendly constellations, Jon can mark his emotional closeness to
Isak, and he was proud to hand over the position as president of their
boys club to his younger brother. Their friendship and shared interests
provide a framework for the way they can practice their relation, and it
is also a way whereby they can describe their relation in a positive manner.
That friendships are always about something, about doing something
together is one of William Rawlins main points in his research on
friendships. Doing something together allows you to focus on shared
interests which points to a sameness that strengthens a relation. Because friendships are usually based on choice, siblings can describe their
relation as a friendship by pointing to the fact that they actively choose
to spend time with one another. This changes their relation from being a
given and framed by their family to being the result of their individual
will and effort. Thus it becomes a relation based solely on individual,
reciprocal and continued investments of time and energy.
For Liv and Nanna, seeing each other as potential friends became a
steppingstone to building a relationship between them, by way of shared
interests and activities. then suddenly we had this really good friendship because we did we started doing all sorts of things together.
They would find things they had in common and thus similarities, which
they could use to build their sibling relation.
Sibling relations can be strengthened by way of strength-markers
such as choice and sharedness when they are verbalized and practiced
as friendships. In this manner, friendship can be used as an alternative,
positive description of sibling relations, which focuses on solidarity,
equality and choice, or as a way of being together that can tone down the
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physical and emotional closeness, which also enables a lessening of friction. And thus the fact that Jon and Isak can talk about themselves as
friends and emphasise their shared group of friends becomes a sign of
strength as it reveals how they actively choose each other even though
they cannot share a home. When siblings call each other friends, it can,
however, also indicate fragility, as Liv explains, When youre friends you
have to be a little more careful siblings, theyre just there. In this light,
friendships can be viewed as being more fragile than siblingships, and
the term friendship can thus point to a relation, which cannot contain
the same degree of conflictuality.
Summery
Children argue, they have conflicts, and they develop together as well as
individually along the way. When siblings are physically close together,
it often becomes a closeness that also causes friction. Most people describe conflictual situations between siblings as being unpleasant, unwanted and sometimes painful, and they affect everybody involved in
the conflict. Movements of closeness and conflictuality can spread like
ripples within a family in the shape of friction with the arrival or departure of a sibling, but also as friction between children who travel together between homes. As a context for siblings, the family can be a densely
interwoven network, where friction between two siblings can affect the
rest of the network making everyone else rub up against one another in
a different way.
Expectations both in relation to siblings and families can, as was
shown in the first chapter of the book, reveal themselves through concrete family relations. These expectations can exist as normative ideas
about what these relations must contain.
Expectations of harmonious and close sibling relations devoid of
conflicts can reveal themselves as directives about getting along and
bans on arguing. Which can be viewed as restrictions that counteract
emotional closeness between children in a family, and obstacles that
prevent children from getting a sense of one another and finding out
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who they are. Conflictuality can be both part of being close as siblings,
but it can also be a way for siblings to get close to one another. Children
who have not yet established close relations but are in the process of
getting to know each other can use conflictual situations to get a feeling
of who the other person is, and what their boundaries are.
Conflictual shapes change over time, perhaps in the shape of fewer
and fewer arguments. However, this may also result in a diminished
sense of closeness. A degree of superficiality may even creep in and challenge the closeness between siblings when they themselves and the rest
of the family wish for and expect that their time together will not be
spent arguing.
When siblings, who are physically close, move shoulder-to-shoulder,
they rub up against each other. This frictional closeness enables them to
sense one another, and it can be experienced both as loving closeness,
which strengthens the bonds between them and makes them feel connected and close. However, it can also be experienced as friction that
generates arguments and conflictual confrontations that challenge the
emotional closeness and the strength of the relation. As siblings strive to
establish valuable relations, shared interests or activities can be used to
inscribe an element of will and choice in their relation. This allows for an
emphasises on what they themselves do to bond with one another, free
from the familys expectation of emotional and physical closeness. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder and being able to lean on one another is something many siblings emphasise as their ideal relation. And with this ideal,
it is important that the history of friction and the conflictual frustrations
between close siblings are viewed as an integral part of this closeness
and as part of the route that may eventually lead to closeness.
The analyses and points made in this chapter are inspired by Janet Carstens concept of relatedness (Carsten 2000, 2004), by William Rawlins
dialectic analyses of friendships (Rawlins 1992), as well as the further
development of points included in the article Emotive Siblings by
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Winther, Gullv and Palludan, which draws attention to the fact that
friction between siblings contains both resistance and inertia (Winther,
Gullv and Palludan, in press). Furthermore, perspectives from Rosalind
Edwards specific research on sibling conflicts (Edwards, et. all 2006)
are also included.
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CHAPTER 7: MOBILE POSITIONS
Chapter 7
Mobile Positions
By Eva Gullv
Oskar and Laurits, nine and eleven years respectively, have lived together all their lives. Their mother and father were divorced many years ago
and ever since they were little, the two boys have alternated between
their parents houses each week. Two years ago, their father moved in
with Linda, who also has two boys, Jonas and Thomas, currently 13 and
16 years old. These two boys are also part of a shared parenting arrangement where they alternate between homes on a weekly basis,
which means that the four boys have spent every other week together
for the last couple of years. This change of life circumstances has
strengthened the relationship between Laurits and Oskar, but it has also
changed their relation. They have, both of them, had to establish relations with their new brothers, a process that has been far from frictionless. There were many arguments and fights during the first year, which
generated tension throughout the entire family. In these conflicts, Laurits and Oskar would stick together, even when they had differing takes
on the situation. As his older brother, Laurits felt that he should protect
Oskar, and for his part, Oskar tried to obtain a more playful youngerbrother-relation to the new boys.
Thus the meeting with other boys have also entailed changes in existing sibling relations. From being unequivocally elder brother, at the age
of nine, Laurits became a younger brother to two new elder brothers,
who showed him that there was another, wider world, outside the world
that he and his brother Oskar had shared up until now. Jonas, who was
previously the younger brother, has become an elder brother in this new
family. Judging by the way he, while Laurits listens, talks about his life
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with friends and girls, trouble and coolness, you get the impression that
having met someone who is interested in his abilities and knowledge
matters a great deal to him. This impression is confirmed when he talks
about his transition from initially opposed to the addition of two new
brothers in his family to actually liking them and regarding them as his
brothers.
Even though Jonas is only 1.5 years older than Laurits, he is by virtue
of his relation to his elder brother, Thomas, much more aware or and
oriented towards teenage life. When Laurits spends time with his
schoolmates and friends from the after school club, they visit each others homes and play computer games or football, build stuff with Lego or
simply play around outside. Jonas does not use the expression play
around outside. Instead, he explains how he cannot be bothered to stay
at home without his friends; he does not want to go to the summerhouse,
but prefers to spend time with my friends who hang out in the mall, and
like to tease people or make trouble sometimes, just for fun. He emphasises, partly directed at Laurits, that Laurits and sometimes Oskar
can join in, but as they are so much younger they cannot hang out with
him and his friends when they are with girls. Then its only me and my
friends and the girls. Laurits is silent during this part of the interview.
He seems to accept the assigned position as uninitiated.
Positions are not fixed. As the case shows, it gradually becomes clear
to Oskar that Laurits might be his most important brother, but there are
also other ways of being an elder brother representing other values than
being good at building things with Lego or climbing trees. Even to him,
the relation to Jonas in particular, opens up new perspectives, which will
invariably affect his perception of Laurits, Jonas and indeed himself.
Birth orders do not in and of themselves say anything unequivocal about
relations or the abilities of those who assume the different positions.
This point becomes expressly visible in families that have encountered
changes to their constellation. When parents find new partners who also
have children, the birth order will often change, whereby elder siblings
become younger siblings and vice versa, as shown in the example above.
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Therefore, it is necessary to take a much more dynamic approach to

sibling positions that also includes family narratives and social contexts
outside the home. Of course being either elder or younger brother matters in terms of self-perception, responsibility and social conventions.
However, the point here is that roles can be fulfilled in different ways.
Being an elder brother does not simply make you into one specific kind
with a predetermined responsibility or behaviour. Nonetheless, the category will often be invoked in the social interactions undertaken by a
family, in the shape of an argument or an opportunity or simply as a
means of explaining behaviour.
Strategies and Identifications

Sibling positions are continually moving, even within families that have
not experienced changes to its constellation. Children position themselves in relation to one another, i.e. they interpret themselves and each
other and continually try to establish ways of being together, that concur
with their own wishes. A common theme in our empirical material has
therefore been reflections on the strategies siblings use to get their own
way or obtain privileges. In a group interview with four 13-year-olds,
Jakob, by way of example, talks about how his 18-year-old elder brother
delays doing his chores, which means that Jakob ends up having to do
them. Emma underpins this narrative with a story about her younger
sister: At the end of the day, when my younger sister really should do it,
she never does. I mean, for example, if she clears the table then she tries
really hard not to, clear the table that is, and then I always have to do it.
And then my younger sister, she tries to talk to my mother and father or
say something completely different, and that annoys me. And 9-year-old
Josephine tells how her 4-year-old younger brother gets his own way:
When me and Niels fight, he always gets his own way in the end, because
he can yell really loud, and I cant be bothered to listen to that. So hes
always, aaaaargh and screamingno, and then its like me, who has to
give in, because I cant be bothered to shout as loud as he does.
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Interviewer:
Josephine:
Is that because youre older?

Yeah, its you know, I dont want to be the one yelling and
screaming and shouting, because it suites a little boy better
than a slightly bigger girl. (Josephine, 9 years old)
Whether intentional or not, it would appear that Niels gets his own way
by yelling in a way that Josephine connects to younger children. She feels
unable to do the same, but exactly by distancing herself from his screaming, she manages to emphasise her own position as big and maintain
her status although she may lose out to him in concrete situations. Positioning strategies are not only about positioning oneself; it is also about
positioning the other, and here the well-known opposition between big
and small can be useful for the older as well as the younger child.
Several of the children also talk about their own strategies to obtain
certain things, including getting their siblings to do things for them or
just being allowed to join in. As 13-year-old Sigrid explains, Its also a
little with siblings, if you do them a favour, its, you know, you are the
worlds best little sister. And she elaborates by telling how she sometimes asks her elder brother if he would like a smoothie: Yes, hell say,
because sometimes I make smoothies, and then, well then hes happy and
not as annoying. It helps. In this way, favours become part of a social
exchange of rights and status. They can become a point of entry in relation to participation and a way of expressing a sense of togetherness, but
they can also become expectations and emphasise an unequal relationship. Which is why children pay explicit attention to what a favour expresses: making a smoothie for your brother is, by way of example, a
gesture that will get you recognition, but it is also a gesture that could
signal subservience, unless you make sure you get something in return,
such as being left alone, or being allowed access to your elder brothers
room. In general, assessments of equality or inequality appear to be part
of the considerations children make when interacting with their siblings.
As the informants describe it, the trivial quarrels of everyday life are
included in their interpretations, interactions and self-understanding.
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Banal actions, like dodging having to empty the dishwasher or not doing
someone a favour, are included in the childrens interpretations of their
siblings, their interrelations, and their sense of self in relation to their
siblings. This becomes apparent when for example 13-year-old Jakob
stresses that his brother is impossible because he is only interested in
computers and sleeping, and Jakob does not believe that he himself will
ever turn out like his brother. At the same time, he explains that it will be
quite boring when his brother moves out of the family home, because
sometimes they play card games and do all sorts of creative stuff and
they have a really good time. In this narrative, Jakob underlines both a
distance and a sense of belonging, which at one and the same time represents their relation as well as Jakobs perception of himself as being
both different from and similar to his brother.
Thus positioning is closely related to identity. Perceptions of the
strategies and actions of ones siblings become the indicators of how you
see yourself and how you would like other people to see you, in much
the same way that you afford importance to how they perceive your
actions. Josephine does not want to be identified with her screaming
younger brother, and Jakob stresses that he is not lazy like his elder
brother. Positioning is about obtaining possibilities, but also about seeing yourself as others see you and marking both differences and similarities. And this is where siblings mean something special. Due to the dominating position of the family as an institution, siblings are almost per
definition relevant others against whom you can identify yourself. Regardless of whether or not siblings have been there all your life, or have
entered at a later stage, they will often occupy an important space in
your everyday existence. You have to relate to them, not least because
the remaining members of your family are also watching, and their reactions and actions also bear witness to relations, positions and identities.
Sibling relationships give rise to continuous interpretations of why
others do as they do, but also of what it leaves oneself in terms of possible actions and identifications. This interpretation is also contextual.
Roles and possibilities change from situation to situation, and thus in-
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terpretations, strategies and reactions continually have to relate to the

current surroundings and the people who participate in and watch your
interactions.
Changing Circumstances and Mobile Relations

That roles and possibilities change with contexts is particularly pertinent in an interview with sisters Laura, eight years of age, and Mathilde,
ten years of age. Mathilde begins by explaining that she does not have
any particular need to be with Laura. She does not believe that Laura has
any business being in her room, and she does not want to spend time
with her when she has friends over. Unaffected by this explicit statement, Laura stresses that she wants to spend time with Mathilde, and
she expresses her frustration at Mathildes behaviour towards her. Discontented, she talks about how she is not allowed into Mathildes room
while Mathilde walks into her room whenever she pleases; how
Mathilde leaves the washing of dishes to watch TV; and how Mathilde
will not lend Laura her things. Mathilde explains that it is because she is
older. It is obviously important to Mathilde to present herself as the
independent elder sister.
However, their descriptions of their everyday lives in two very different households leaves another impression, namely that of a relation
that changes in relation to context. Rather than one being distanced and
the other dependant, they appear to be closely related, spending much
time together while staying at their fathers. They only spend every other weekend with their father, and he lives far form their school, leisure
activities and friends. At his house, there are different rules and duties,
and they appear to stand together as they face the expectations expressed by their father and his new wife. And they also appear united
when they spend time with their fathers new wifes two boys, who are
the same age as them, and who live at their fathers on a more permanent basis. Then there is no fighting, and both describe how they prefer
to share a bed when going to sleep. This unity seems to evaporate each
time they stay with their mother, which is the household they consider
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home. It is close to their school and leisure activities, and their friends
live in the neighbourhood. The child-friendly surroundings also allow
them to roam freely and hang out with their friends without much interaction between them. Generally speaking, Mathilde does not believe that
friends and siblings should mix to any great degree. Laura does not define it quite as categorically, but in practice they do not appear to spend
much time together, while staying at their mothers.
This example illustrates a particular dynamic of sibling relations, a
kind of pulse between closeness and distance, dominance and caring,
continuity and changeability, similarity and difference, identification and
independence. Some contexts call for intimacy, while other contexts
underpin autonomy. In some contexts siblings are relevant, in others
they are not. The positions we take in relation to one another reflect our
self-perception, which is invariably linked to how we look at others and
perceive their way of looking at us. And this again is related to the history we share and the concrete situations in which we find ourselves. In
this interpretative dynamic, not only siblings play a part. In the example
above, the girls relation to their mother probably calls for other independence markers that the ones called for in the more unfamiliar relation(s) to their fathers new family members. Changing homes also
changes the audience. When they stay with their father, emphasising
their independent autonomy becomes less important than stressing
their mutual identification and intimacy. Thus positioning also reflects a
relative social adaptation to the norms and expectations of changing
circumstances.
We find a similar dynamic in the many descriptions of holiday time as
opposed to everyday life. Being away from friends and social media
leaves one with only siblings for company and this activates sibling relations in new ways, often in some sort of interplay between solidarity and
irritation, intimacy and distance, relevance and indifference. Esther who
is 11 years of age expresses it in this way:
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I mean, if you, when youre on holiday in another country, you just have
one another and not, youre not with that many other people. And then
in the beginning, its always like this with me and my sister, we fight an
awful lot, because we have to share everything. And then after some
time we just learn that okay, now well do this and then we just become,
we learn how to be really good friends, and then were just friends for
the rest of the holiday. Its really nice, because we travel around a lot,
and we do not get to go home in between, where there are friends and
stuff.
In this manner, even unproblematic variations of family life shift the
balance of social relations. In relation to an everyday life filled with activities and chores, holidays provide a framework for an entirely different way of spending time together. It is necessary to find a way to be
together, and several children describe that it takes a few days. Everyone
is placed in the same situation with the consequence that even little
things like clearing the table, handling the remote control, or going
somewhere together can give cause for marking rights and hierarchy.
Several children explain that once you have found a way, a strong sense
of togetherness emerges, which becomes especially strong in the meeting with other strange children and in relation to parents (see also
chapter 2, The Importance of Things). If the markings of distance and
difference are toned down, a shared identification emerges.
What is shared and what is individual thus changes depending on the
situation. Experiences of being closely linked or not, and deliberations
on when you are similar and when you are different, cannot be understood isolated from the contexts you are part of and adapt to. Your perception of closeness or distance is influenced by where you are, how
much time you spend together, what the alternatives are, and whom else
you are with. In some situations the personal identity will be at stake, in
others it makes little difference - probably because the people around
are of little importance. Identity does not encompass an unchanging
solid core or specific characteristics that float unchanged between places
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and social contexts. Identity is contextually and relationally conditioned.

Identity expresses how you act and perceive yourself and others in the
light of changing circumstances. Within these processes, siblings matter,
as they allow for both identification and distancing. But also other people who watch and interpret your actions and interactions influence
your perception of a given situation, how you position yourself in relation to others, and how you choose to present yourself.
Sibling Relations and Family Dynamics

Rhythms and frameworks have relational consequences and in this investigation it is primarily parents who frame the settings. However,
equally important for the characteristics of sibling relations are the roles
of parents (and others) as observers and determiners of norms. The inavailability of all positions and actions is due to the well-established
codex of behaviour enforced by others present. As is discussed in the
chapter Conflictual Closeness, the informants stress in several interviews
how their parents dislike harsh infighting and arguments among siblings. There are limits to what you can call your siblings, how much you
are allowed to yell at them and tease them, and there are often clear
demarcations of when fights are no longer justifiable. Social interactions
between siblings are observed and witnessed, and this, more or less
obviously, provides frameworks and norms for the way siblings behave
when they are together. And this attention influences the way children
interpret themselves and others and see their relations and possibilities.
The mutual positioning of siblings is therefore not merely an internal
concern among themselves; it involves all members of a family. As both
observers and participants, others play a part by interpreting, questioning or underpinning interactions that take place, whereby they confirm
or challenge those very positions as well as the self-perception and understanding of each individual. Concurrent interpretations of siblings
actions and strategies draw on an established ethos, which also includes
assessments of what other family members find acceptable and fair.
Thus other people matter to the norms established between siblings.
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Whereby it follows that children who move between homes invariably

have more people they have to position themselves in relation to; there
are more assessments to take into account when appraising their interactions with their siblings. It is demanded of them that they engage in
more decoding and adaptation, but it also allows for different positionings (a theme also discussed in the chapter, Siblings In Between Spaces).
In very diverse families there will often be several norms at play, and not
all will be considered equally relevant. In which case each individual will
perpetually assess towards whom they would prefer and find it most
relevant to orientate themselves - something that often change depending on context and over time.
At the same time, this dimension of family-dynamics means that interrelations between siblings also influence parent-child relations and
relations between the adults in a family. This is, by way of example,
made clear in an interview with Jonas and Thomas mother, Linda. She
talks about how difficult it has been to balance a family with four boys,
who did not really know each other. Jonas anger on account of Laurits
and Oskar moving in caused many conflicts also between the two
grown-ups. Laurits and Oskars father had difficulties accepting that
Jonas would hit his boys, and Linda considered his perception of the
conflicts as far too one-sided. In this way the relations between the children of the different marriages were important to the family as a whole
and nearly caused the adults to split up. And so, childrens relations are
not merely determined by the frameworks and priorities established by
parents, they also influence family dynamics and intergenerational relations. These complex interactions cause reactions and shape the positions taken, which then influence the interplay between the siblings and
the family as a whole.
Summery
The nature of interactions between siblings reflects the formation and
dynamics of the family. Positions change over time and depend on context. Changes in family configurations mean altered relations, but also
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relocations, change of school, new friends, or new interests cause new

expectations and means of orientation. Positioning is about identity.
Marking yourself as similar to or different from your siblings and assessing their actions and behaviour becomes ways of accentuating your
own perceptions, assessment criteria and sense of self. Positioning is a
form of self-presentation and therefore any given positioning depends
on whom you are with and where you are, i.e. relationally and contextually. Some features will be emphasised, others toned-down, and these
choices reflect you own assessment of whom and what is relevant in the
situation. Sibling positions cannot be reduced to questions of birth order,
gender or qualities. They reflect far more dynamic and contextually defined social interactions, which do not merely involve the siblings in a
given family, but all members of that family who by way of participation
and observation help set op norms and confirm actions, relations and
identities.
This chapter was inspired by sociological and anthropological theories
on social identity (see for example Erving Goffman (1959), The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life; Richard Jenkins (2006) Social Identity; or
Laura Gilliam (2013), Identity, Self, Category and Community). Here the
importance of the dynamics between how one perceives oneself and
others as well as how others perceive oneself, is central to identity. The
theoretical argument is that neither positions nor identity are static but
changeable over time and dependent on social context. Transferred to
the analysis of sibling relations, these theoretical points challenge the
idea that it is possible to map how birth orders influence the development of personal characteristics. By including the many diverse family
structures and the childrens descriptions of changes in their relations,
this theoretical perspective has contributed to an understanding of the
strategies, self-presentations and interpretations the interviews encompass.
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CHAPTER 8: DOUBTING THE OBVIOUS
Chapter 8
Doubting the Obvious
By Charlotte Palludan
To 17-year old Peter, siblingship is not a given or naturally related to
sharing parents, childhood history or a home. To him, siblings are something he creates and maintains or not, as the case may be. Siblingship is
about choosing to belong together, which are choices he makes in relation to people who are potential siblings, because they may share a parent or because their parents are in a relationship. To him, the criterion is
whether or not he recognises something in the other person that he
likes. If he does, he experiences a feeling of siblingship and will engage in
a brotherly fashion, which to him entails acting in a caring, loving and
responsible way towards the other person, as he explains. If, on the other hand, he continually experiences that there is something he does not
like in the way the other person behaves or feels about life and other
people, his feelings will cool down over time. Peter has many experiences with many different shapes of siblingship: he has biological siblings,
he has lived with some siblings at either his mothers or his fathers
home, and there are other siblings whom he has never lived with, yet
they still share a childhood history. The members of this large group of
siblings do not hold equal sibling status for Peter. He relativizes his relations and feelings towards them. Those he and others terms his sisters
and brothers are not necessarily permanently viewed as such, and they
do not necessarily mean the same to him. In other words, from Peters
perspective, sibling status is not obvious.
Not everyone shares Peters perspective. Sigrid, Jakob, Philip and
Emma are friends and they all see their sibling relations as absolutely
given and of the same kind. They, each within their own sibling group,
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experience reciprocal engagement in the shape of love, care, pride, intimacy and a willingness to tease, argue and get annoyed with one another
in balanced doses. The concurrence of love and conflicts is further
illustrated in the chapter Conflictual Closeness. All four children link their
unquestioned involvement to the fact that they share parents as well as
childhood and childhood conditions with their respective brothers and
sisters. Among other things they say that, Id definitely say that you
were a bit more sibling-like if your parents had equal say and the same
rules applied, right (Emma) and there is something about, if you have
lived through your entire childhood together (Sigrid). To them, being
siblings is simply something they are. It is characterised as natural and
not, as it is for Peter, something you have to take a stand on. Unlike Peter, having to relate to the personalities and lives of ones sisters and
brothers and then based on these findings assess and relativize whether
or not you would class them as close siblings appears to not even enter
their thinking as an option. Sigrids, Jakobs, Philips and Emmas sibling
relations are marked by continuity, community and consensus, whereas
break-ups, scattering and conflicts also enter the equation of Peters
sibling relations. And the conflicts do not merely include teasing and
bickering, but also jealousy and falling out. Observing some of the internal conflicts among his siblings has urged Peter to explicitly relate to his
siblings as individuals and assess his relation to each one of them. His
concrete sibling experiences have caused doubts about the relatedness
among siblings that appears so obvious to Sigrid, Jakob, Philip and Emma.
Common Assumptions Can Be Challenged

To Lise, her relation to her elder brother was as natural as expressed by
the four children above. He would protect and defend her. She would
seek and find help and comfort when life proved difficult. They did not
live together and they did not have the same father. Nevertheless, Lise
felt very closely related to her brother and believed the closeness to be
reciprocated which was also why it came as a big surprise to her that her
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brother suddenly distanced himself from her, offering no explanation. It

happened concurrently with the termination of her brothers prison
sentence, but she does not know what the real reason is. She needs explanations but cannot get any. He does not want to talk about it. And
thus, she can simply conclude that he is not the brother he used to be. It
has incurred doubts about their sibling relation, and this doubt is wearing Lise down. This is why she wants her brother to take an explicit
stand on whether or not he considers her his sister. She wants to know if
she can depend on him or not. Either he has to stand by the fact that Im
his sister, or he should say that he doesnt want to know me because
this is tiresome (Lise).
Both Lise and Peter know the feeling of being naturally related to
siblings. However, they have also experienced how feelings of naturalness can be challenged, which allows doubt to sneak in and upset the
relational balance. This happens when relations are filled with conflicts
and reveal personality traits and ways of living that do not match their
own understanding of being a good sister or brother. Both of them address this doubt when they either take a stand themselves or demand
that their siblings make a decision on what the character of their relation
should be like. Their intention is to lessen the emotional consequences of
being in doubt not least for themselves. At the same time, they further
challenge the common assumption about the relation. Both Lise and
Peter are well aware of whom their siblings are and thus also which
sibling relations are disputed. For some of the other children, it is a lot
less clear who their potentially obvious siblings are. In their lives, doubt
is not so much something that occurs or happens at a certain point in
time, as in Lise and Peters lives, it is rather a basic condition of their
sibling relations.
When Sibling Relations Are Influenced by Doubt

When asked, 10-year-old Dan cannot provide an immediate answer to
how many siblings he has. Thinking about it a little longer, he reaches
the conclusion that he has three siblings. One is his twin, but he did not
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know that he had a twin brother until he was approx. five years old. He
met him at their mothers place. Since then, they have spent time together at their fathers and paternal grandmothers house and over the years,
they have managed to establish a sense of relatedness. He has always
known about his other brother, but he lives in an institution and because
Dan never sees him, he is not really part of the family picture. Finally, he
has a little sister, who lives with his mother, whom he rarely sees; his
mother usually visits him alone and only very occasionally does he visits
his mother. The family history and its social construction has left Dan
with an inherent doubt about whether or not he has anymore siblings,
apart from his twin brother. Hence his relations to his other siblings are
not obvious at all. When sisters and brothers do not see each other and
do not share an everyday life or have places where they can meet, there
is room for doubt.
This was also true for Jonas. He lost a brother because his brother
lost his mother. Jonas and his brother shared an everyday existence and
were given participants in each others lives, because their parents had
brought them together. When his brothers mother died, the brother
moved back in with his father and there was little occasion for the two
boys to remain part of each others lives. This specific social event and
the concrete consequences it had in terms of living conditions and relations planted a fundamental doubt in Jonas mind in terms of whether or
not they really are brothers and if he will ever see his brother again.
Karl, who is nine years old, also talks about an explicit doubt in relation to a couple of his siblings. He does not doubt that they are related.
He lives with both of them, shares one parent with each of them and his
everyday life with one of them. He does not doubt his own sense of relatedness. Rather, his doubt is centred on whether or not it is reciprocated. He would very much like to feel related to his elder siblings and appears to need them to confirm their relationship by sharing experiences
and everyday activities with him. As a result, he is very aware of being
rejected and of not being treated kindly. The fact that they do not explicitly acknowledge him causes doubt in him. Greater access to their rooms,
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playing musical instruments together more frequently or being allowed

in when they hang out together in their rooms would very possibly limit
the doubt that Karl experiences when he contemplates his sibling relations. As opposed to Dan and Jonas, Karls situation does not include
doubt about whether or not a sibling relation exists, his doubt relates to
what that sibling relation means to his siblings. To Karl, simply being
siblings is not enough. He wants to know about his siblings interests,
and he constantly explores what he can do with them and how much
their family structure can encompass.
From Doubt to Common Assumption

In similar fashion, the children at Blmejsevej have explored their family
structure and slowly realised what they can do together. This group
consists of Kalle, Alberte and Conrad, and together with their mother,
they have moved to Blmejsevej, where Alexander and Carlo and their
father have also moved in. The first time we ask them if they consider
themselves siblings, they are very doubtful. They look to each other for
answers, searching for words, until the eldest takes responsibility and
answers that it depends. Sometimes he feels related as a family and
sometimes not. These changes are closely related to physical proximity.
When they have spent a week together in their shared home, they become siblings of sorts. When they spend time apart, in their other homes,
he does not consider them siblings. The others nod their confirmation of
Kalles interpretation. On our return a year later, their doubt seems to
have been replaced by a greater sense of a common pre-understanding.
They do not call each other siblings, but their relatedness appears to be
much more obvious to them. The five children lie entangled on the
couch. They fondle each others hair and laugh amongst themselves.
Bodily interconnectedness as we recognise it from Sigrids, Jakobs, Philips and Emmas stories about how simply being siblings is concretely
expressed.
Over time, the children at Blmejsevej have minimized doubt. This
process is most likely helped by the fact that their relatedness has been
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strengthened by way of a shared youngest brother. Several children talk

about how having a shared third, primarily in the shape of a person but a
dog will suffice, is defining for their sense of being a family of siblings.
The shared person can be a parent but a shared sister or brother is what
most strongly generates sibling relations according to the interviewed
children. Sharing a relation to a person, however, is not the only way to
create and maintain sibling relations. Signe, Anne, Mikkel and Katrine do
not have shared younger siblings, they do not share parents, and they no
longer share a home. As children, they did at one point share a home,
when their parents were together. During those years, they developed a
sense of belonging and common assumptions about being siblings. They
have managed to maintain this sense, even after their parents split up.
They are still related, which is why they are still together, now that they
have grown into young adults and they cannot imagine that it would
change in the future. They are simply siblings.
Of Course We Are Siblings Forever Or Are We?

12-year-old Johanne concurs: she cannot imagine that her relations to
her siblings could be broken sometime in the future. Johannes parents
divorced when she was little, and both of them have new partners and
each couple has provided Johanne with younger brothers. Furthermore,
Johanne has elder sisters, whom her father had with his first wife. All
sisters and brothers are part of Johannes life, regardless of huge age
differences and their being spread across several homes. The sibling
relations are either tied to a shared father or a shared mother as well as
to a shared history and the relatedness to a shared family. In Johannes
life, which along these parameters is quite similar to Peter and Karls
lives, this is no cause for concern, in the manner that it is for them. Personal arrangements of self in relation to the sibling arrangements one is
part of, vary. People focus on different things, they feel differently about
things, and they reflect differently on given circumstances. And sibling
arrangements also unfold differently and call for different reactions,
even when they may appear similar. Jonhanne does not experience the
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little rejections and the inconsistent attention in her everyday life the
same way as Karl does. Perhaps because she is an elder sister and the
one who includes her younger siblings while Karl is the younger brother
who is potentially excluded. The importance of mutual positioning is
also discussed in the chapter, Mobile Positions. Neither does Johanne
experience conflicts between her elder siblings nor that some of them
display characteristics or live their lives in ways she needs to distance
herself from, in the way Peter does. Therefore, she has never been
placed in a situation where she felt it necessary to question a sibling
relation. And unlike Peter, Johanne has not had to connect to a sister,
with whom she shares no parent. A sister, about whom Peter has this to
say: Dont quite know what will happen with Maria perhaps well be
together, a lot can happen (Peter). Rikke is older than Peter and she is
one of the young adults who have learnt that much can happen. When
her brother was getting married, it turned out that she was not invited.
As the daughter of her brothers mothers former husband, Rikke was
not considered a family member naturally invited to the wedding. For
Rikke it was obvious: she and Olav were siblings, because they shared
their childhood, home and younger sisters. However, now, she is no
longer certain.
Knowing that much can happen, and that much has happened, is an
important ingredient not in all siblingships, but in some. To these siblings, complexity and change is a condition with sensitive effects that call
for sensitive initiatives. The different types of initiatives should probably
be viewed in the light of the situation and their parents approach. When
Peter dares to verbalize the doubt he has about his relation to a brother,
it is perhaps because he knows that his mother is keen to maintain their
relation and ensure that they stay related. And therefore it is not necessarily a life-long break he is instigating, which may give him the courage
to actually do it. When Lise sees no other alternative but to compel her
brother to reject her, it is possibly because she is very much on her own
due to her parents being ill or dead, and she cannot cope emotionally
with being on stand-by. When Dan focuses on the brother with whom he
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sometimes shares his fathers house, but does not take any initiatives in
relation to his other siblings with whom he shares a mother, it is most
likely not least due to his parents highly conflictual past history. The
conditions that shape parents ability to influence sibling relations vary,
and they have many different thoughts on their childrens sibling arrangements. They also have differing expectations and hopes about the
way their children relate. Not least because they also doubt what expectations and hopes they can actually entertain.
Parents Doubt
Johannes father, Steen, who has children with three different women, is
uncertain of how he should interpret the relations his children have with
one another. To him, they are indisputably siblings, and he knows that
they feel the same way. Yet, he is also aware that they are not siblings in
the way that he would expect them to be. There are subtle details in the
way they talk to each other and the way they interact with each other
that differs from what he would expect, and this makes him doubt the
character of siblingship. He explains that it is something he has considered, but that it has not changed his practical efforts to create and maintain a close and given bond between his children. He does what he believes is right, based on his own experiences with having siblings. He
does so because he would like his children to be close. This ambition is
not something he has explicitly voiced to his children. If they are aware
of it, it is because they sense it. Partly in their everyday life, where Johanne and her younger brothers, who also live there, and the elder sisters who come visiting, are interwoven by way of shared routines and
interactions; and partly, by way of holidays and festive traditions, including Christmas, which all of my children always spend together, as Steen
contentedly explains. In much the same way, Karls parents create annual recurring events where all the children meet up, but they do not connect this to any ambition they may harbour that their children should
consider themselves siblings. In fact, they are clearer about not considering the children they each bring to the family as siblings. Neither have
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they entertained the idea that they had to do something special to ensure that their children would become siblings. However, Kasper and
Bodil, the children referred to here, do consider themselves siblings, and
this makes their parents a little doubtful. Karls relationship to his other
siblings, on the other hand, appear to be a little more obvious to his parents than to Karl himself perhaps because he is their shared child.
At Blmejsevej, there is a clearer concurrence between how the children understand their interrelations and how their parents see them.
The doubts entertained by the children in relation to their relatedness
and their possible sibling arrangements resonate in their parents narrative. It was new to them all, and the parents were not sure about whether they were one big family or rather two families living together. Over
time, this changed. And according to Peter, time has also changed his
fathers understanding of the character of his childrens sibling relations.
When the children were younger, they were considered siblings, including those children with whom they only had a mother in common, and
not a father. At the time Peter installed doubts about one of his siblings,
his father followed suit. A doubt that is not rediscovered in Peters
mother, who like many of the other childrens parents, encourage a given
relatedness by way of regular and recurring activities, among other
things, to avoid the doubt that circulates.
Parents doubt the nature of sibling relations, but they do not necessarily share the doubts of their children. There is far from always concurrence between the way children and parents understand sibling relations. Which is also why we cannot be sure that the assumptions, which
for some children are connected to their sibling arrangements, are reflected in their parents experience of those very sibling arrangements. A
possible doubt for parents concerns whether or not their children have
and will continue to have a good and close relation to one another. For
many parents this is a great wish. At the same time, they are perfectly
aware that many things can happen, also in terms of sibling relations.
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Summery
A sense of relatedness between siblings is obvious to some children, but
not to all. Relatedness is relative; it can cause doubt and be rejected.
Rejections can be based on the will to take a moral stand about someone
elses way of living. They can also be a consequence of having to ascertain that it is emotionally too stressful to have to acknowledge that the
relation did not contain the qualities one thought it did. When sibling
relations are rejected, it generates doubt about the longevity of the arrangement. There is a common cultural assumption that siblingships last
forever, but rejections of siblings in fact mark that it is a relation that
only lasts until it no longer exists. The transience of relations, however,
is not always the consequence of free choices. Social events in families
are also important. Particular life circumstances dominated by lack of
time spent together can even mean that children can have doubts about
whether or not they actually share sibling relations with children with
whom they share parents.
Doubt about the character of sibling relations is not always explicitly
expressed; it can also constitute a silent partner in a shared everyday
existence. Here it may be related to rejections or lack of attention or
limited knowledge about each other. It can give cause for doubt in terms
of what you mean to other people, or what they mean to you. And over
time, this doubt will occasionally change and turn into a sense of obvious
affinities.
Connections between siblings are mobile, both in terms of quality
and existence. There appears to be no unequivocal connection between
movements in sibling dynamics and family histories. Doubts thrive in
many places and in many different guises. However, it is probable that
children who have never experienced any changes to their family arrangements also have a tendency to consider their sibling relations as
continual and completely natural. It does not immediately occur to them
that being siblings is something you can be until things change. We cannot exclude that the biological relatedness plays a part here. And regardless, it is interesting that the children who talk about doubt all do so in
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relation to siblings they are not biologically related to or siblings with

whom they only share one parent. At the same time, the children for
whom doubt about the character of their siblingship barely exists are
primarily children who only have biological siblings. That biology may
influence the way children understand their own role in sibling groups
may also help explain why many children emphasise a shared person as
important to their relatedness. And by shared person, they refer to
someone with whom they also share a bloodline, e.g. a shared younger
sister or parent.
The complexity of family arrangements and the familial order usually
include that mental perceptions and emotional experiences of sibling
relations are ambiguous. Children and parents alike have to ascertain
and relate to the fact that connections are not unequivocal. Not even in a
biological sense. Siblings are not something you are by definition, it is an
arrangement that requires specific investments.
Theoretical inspiration
The chapters analyses of different ways of experiencing and perceiving
siblingship(s) are inspired by the British anthropologist Janet Carstens
concept of relatedness, the Danish psychologist Ole Dreiers concepts of
personality and life conduct, as well as the Swedish researcher Jenny
Ahlbergs analyses of the experiences of children of divorced parents.
Relatedness is a concept that allows us to study relational relations in
ways that differ from classical anthropology, where family is understood
as a social order, based on the order of nature and the order of the law
(Tine Tjrnhj-Thomsen 2004). According to Carsten, we should rather
view sibling relations as an expression of peoples creative negotiations
(Carsten 2000). The concept of relatedness has thus opened up our ability to shed light on how children define sibling relations and how they
feel about them. This approach is further unfolded by adding Ole Dreiers
concept of life conduct, which also focuses on human behaviour and
includes the connection between the social and the individual. Life conduct is an individuals practical approach to minding themselves in rela-
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tion to the social arrangements they are part of, which is closely related
to the understanding of the self said individual develops (Dreier 2011).
In her research, Jenny Ahlberg has thematized the part of childrens life
conduct that includes doubts, choices and rejections in divorced families
(Ahlberg 2008). Inspired by the British sociologists Carol Smart and
Anthony Giddens, she shows that when families break up, the people
involved stop perceiving family members as people with whom they are
obvious related. Because their experiences reveal that relations do not
always last forever, they last only until.
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Postscript
Practical and Sensitive Relations
In this book we discuss what siblingships involve in contemporary Danish society. Through our empirical study, we have tried to highlight how
children experience and handle their sibling relations and how these
vary in relation to biographies, constellations and individual preferences. In our work with the material, we have time and again, been
struck by this level of variation, but also by how significant the will to
siblinghip is. Many children put in a lot of effort to maintain relations
and overcome obstacles and counteract conditions that hinder their
relationships. Their efforts can, as shown in the chapters, be expressed
in many ways.
However, it is not always up to the children to fill out the sibling relations they are part of. Parents notions of good siblingships provide context for the (inter)actions of children, as do social conventions and cultural understandings. The room to manoeuvre and interpret is limited.
Siblings are expected to relate to one another, to be close and to get
along. They are expected to be positively inclined and to tone down possible conflicts. Siblings are also expected to support each other while
maintaining a great degree of individual autonomy. These cultural
norms influence childrens concrete interpretations, practices and emotions.
The organisation of families also plays a part in childrens interrelations. Some sibling groups are relatively short and narrow, as the family
only includes few children who are close in age. Other sibling groups
include many children, of different litters, which make the sibling groups
longer and wider. The complexity of families and sibling groups is further enhanced by changes and social events such as divorce. The degree
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of complexity is important in terms of how a child can perform as a sibling. In the different chapters, we have been interested in what siblings
do together, i.e. how siblings relate by way of a series of practical actions
and time spent together, which over time transforms into a complexity
of emotions, memories, classifications, positions, identifications and
beings, both for each individual child and between siblings.
In the summery below, we point out the insights into siblings as a
cultural phenomenon this study has revealed and we draw attention to
more general issues in family relations. We especially wish to point out
how experiences of long and wide siblingships provide children with an
opportunity to develop specific, socially relevant knowledge.
The Importance of Time

The potential duration of sibling relations affords them a particular
character. Many people imagine that sibling relations last for life. When
the informants in our study talk about what is special about their sibling
relations, they often refer to time. A shared personal history presents
itself as a guarantee that the relation will stretch far into the future.
Children whose siblings have always been around rarely express any
doubts as to whether or not the relation will last. When the shared past
is of shorter duration, however, a shared future is less of a given and
considered more of a potential. This is why children who have experienced movements in their families regard time as a pivotal point for
assessing the character of a sibling relation. Many children hope that the
relations will continue, but their experiences reveal that this requires
effort as well as commitment. Some children have experienced several
divorces and the arrival of more than one set of new siblings, which has
made them selective in terms of which relations they hope to maintain in
the future. Similar experiences have left other children sceptical about
placing any faith in the longevity of sibling relations in general. Which is
why a potential shared future is described as rather utopian. At the same
time, it is almost astounding how far the interviewed children will
stretch to overcome potential barriers, establish contact, and try to live
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up to the idea of the life-long relationship; knowing full well that their
efforts may be based purely on hope.
Shared personal history has impact on how relations are interpreted,
but in the interviews it is also striking how differently time is perceived.
In some of the narratives, an adult perspective would define the time
perspective as rather short, while the children apparently perceive it as
long, which enables them to consider their relations as cemented. Relations are established and consolidated over time, but there are no set
guidelines as to what time constitutes or how much time is needed to
establish weight in sibling relations or when it is proper to refer to relations as siblingships.
Time is also part of everyday practice. Being together in the same
place(s) matters in terms of the character of the relation. When spending
time together, children can choose to do something together, but when
they are separated that is not an option. Children who commute at different times are rarely afforded opportunity to spontaneously do things
together. In these cases, parents organisation of activities and logistic
structuring of time and contact have decisive influence on siblings opportunities to be together. Thus, sibling relations are inextricable linked
to the familys rhythm and temporal organisation.
However, siblings also have their own time structures and rhythmic
dynamics. This is true for children who live together, who share afternoons together watching TV, being on their computers or getting to
school on time, etc. Childrens own time and particular rhythms are,
however, particularly distinctive in the part of our material that deals
with siblings who move between homes. Over time, journeys between
homes turn into rhythmic routine. They are often referred to as a waste
of time, yet these journeys nonetheless stand out as special sibling time.
Time filled with arguments and grievances but also shared reflections on
greater and smaller aspects of everyday life. With the distance afforded
the traveller, siblings can become interpretive partners in their reading
of life.
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Even children who either have moved out of the family home or have
siblings who live by themselves talk about particular, often asynchronous, types of communication and ways of being together. Through different social media they keep up with each others lives and thus become
part of one anothers everyday time. From being framed by parents
initiatives and ways of organising family life, sibling relations gradually
become more detached and self-organized; perhaps the vitality is even
reinforced by the fact that parents are out of step. Similarly, it is probably essential for the creation of intensity and weight in the sibling relationships that there are times when parents are not present.
In siblingships different rhythms intersect: the rhythms of life and
the rhythms of everyday, household rhythms, the rhythm of journeys,
parents rhythm and childrens rhythms. Siblings handle the contrasts
arising by concurrent rhythms and create relations to one another in the
ways possible for them. Not just physical and practical but importantly
also emotional bonds. Siblings have an effect on and are affected by one
another.
An Emotional Bond
Feelings constitute a much more important component in our material
than we had expected and we have been struck by the degree to which
even the younger children are able to verbally explain even quite complicated emotional relations. The children talk about what they like,
what makes them happy or sad, what annoys them, what generates
doubt, and what makes them angry. But emotions are not just an individual matter. There are cultural norms for emotional articulations indicating which feelings will be relevant and legitimate under which circumstances. Similarly, the idea that emotions are important aspects of
siblingships is not a natural given. Looking through literature on siblingships from other parts of the world, it is far from evident that the relations are defined by the emotional experiences of individuals.
In Denmark, there appears to be a general tendency to consider emotions central to the nature of the social relations between people and
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much more so than work sharing, care, influence, rights and finances.
And this is not least true in relation to children. There is a pronounced
focus on childrens emotions and emotional wellbeing, which among
other things, reveals itself in the counselling of parents and the strong
emphasis in families, childcare institutions and schools on teaching children how to acknowledge and talk about their feelings. It is this training
of childrens abilities to talk about their emotional state that we encounter in the interviews, and from which we profit in the sense that we are
informed about the particular feelings individual children have towards
their siblings as well as more general cultural norms on feelings between
siblings. Yet emotions do not just take a prominent position in the childrens narratives because they reflect culturally established ways of
talking about and relating to relations. They are also recurrent because
they are complex and difficult to clarify on an individual basis. As is apparent in several chapters, the informants talk simultaneously about
love and doubt, closeness and conflict. The experience of belonging together is mixed up with considerations about the depth of reciprocity
and the character of the relation. To some, doubt is the prominent feeling, to others, siblings constitute a given that leaves them in no doubt
about the relation; they merely consider its current expression.
Complex and ambivalent emotions become more predominant when
relations are loose. This is true not only of families that rearrange their
constellations. It is true of all families. Relations change over time and
must be interpreted anew. And this is perhaps particularly true in a cultural context, where the nature of relations is shaped by individuals
concrete choices and actions rather than through predetermined and
solidified work and responsibility distributions. The sibling relations of
the children interviewed do contain aspects of helping and looking out
for each other, not least in connection with journeys from one home to
the next. Nonetheless, we have been surprised by how relatively difficult
it has been to consider siblingships as routinely performed communities
of practice, and how much emphasis we must in fact place on the individuals initiatives, actions, sense of responsibility and understanding of
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others positions when we describe siblingships. Sibling relations call for

interpretations and negotiations as they are formed through the actions
of the involved within particular social and practical frames. Our study
points to the fact that in a current Danish context, actions and interpretations are centred on emotions.
In continuation hereof, it is not surprising, although we were a little
surprised, that the children we followed uttered such great concern for
whether or not their siblings were all right. They do not necessarily feel
able to do much, but they express a concern and a sense of responsibility. Rather than pointing to chores and specific doings in relation to their
siblings wellbeing, this type of responsibility concerns empathy and
support.
Our interviews with parents provided insights into the reservations
presented by many parents in terms of burdening their children with
duties related to their siblings. On occasion, they may ask a child to pick
up a younger brother, bathe a younger sister or help with their homework. But in many instances such demands will be explained by way of
providing space for establishing emotional attachments between siblings
and only rarely as practical necessities. These duties should indeed be
parents tasks, because children should not be obliged to relate to one
another. Instead, siblings should benefit from their relations by way of
having fun together, listening to and respecting each other as well as
taking an interest of their own accord. And when listening to the childrens narratives, they appear to have adopted this understanding themselves. This is what they do in relation to their siblings, and it is also
what they wish to do - and preferably without meddling parents. Parents
who prompt their children to show appreciation of a siblings state of
being and situation can be disruptive. Children know that their parents
support for sibling relations by way of cosy arrangements and other
activities is based purely on goodwill. But the timing of their support is
not always right and sometimes there appears to be no consideration of
the fragility and mobility at stake when siblings tune in emotionally.
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Distributing Things and Spaces

Emotions are not only expressed verbally or bodily. They can also be
expressed through things. Things can be shared or denied and thus come
to express closeness or distance, which then generates new feelings of
joy or disappointment. Things are part of the relational order and are
therefore included in the narratives we encounter as explanations of a
relations current character. We are told about room sizes, about new or
handed-down clothes, about whose photo is on the wall, and how grandparents distribute presents. And we encounter narratives about the fact
that who gives presents matters, whether or not you exchange a gift is a
matter of importance, and how parents will assist in obtaining things
that allow for the expression of closeness. There is an outspoken focus
on the symbolic statements of things in relation to sibling relations and
thus their social importance. Which is also true for parents who talk
about their deliberations in terms of a just distribution of money, things
and privilege. And it is clear that this theme is so extensively covered in
counselling and handbooks that parents cannot help but pay attention to
the fact that materiality is part of the moral order and as such read relationally.
Especially in divorced families, there appears to be a strong focus on
children ideally not missing out or feeling ignored. It appears as if parents generally try to ensure that each child has their own things to avoid
battles over having to share. Even the different homes will be arranged
along the principles of equality and justice. Emphasis is on everybody
belonging in equal measure. Each child should be afforded her or his
own space and preferably in the shape of their own room in each home.
Collectively, these priorities result in a massive presence of things at
least in families who are materially affluent. And even though one can
reflect on the massive material consumption that surrounds children, it
appears as if the investments actually perform as hoped for. In our collective material there are not many stories of feeling disadvantaged or
unjustly treated. Parents attempts at balancing and distributing according to what is considered fair seem to be working to a great extent.
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This attention to equality and the efforts to avoid experiences of inequality combine with the childrens experiences of having material rights
in terms of having their own room, a seat in the car, a photo in the family
gallery quite literally, a space of their own. As they perform sibling
relations in their everyday lives, they are informed by culturally acceptable material standards, notions of equality and by way of the material conditions they are afforded.
In siblingships, symbolic, social, emotional, moral and material orders are interwoven, and they inform the ways in which siblings can be
together while also underpinning or challenging their individual positions.
Complex Communities
When we generally think about siblingship or encounter sibling relations
in books, films, adverts, etc., the images we see are often informed by a
norm that presents siblings as biologically connected and relatively
simply positioned in relation to one another, in the shape of elder brother to younger sister or elder sister to younger sister etc. This sibling
study, however, has made it clear that it is not that simple. Siblings are
far from always biologically connected, and the importance of a possible
biological interconnectedness is culturally constructed and may be quite
differently performed in different sibling groups as well as individually.
As is apparent in the analyses presented in the various chapters, the
children we have interviewed do not unequivocally refer to biological
relations when they talk about siblings. Many describe the children they
have grown up with as siblings, whether or not they in fact have parents
in common. They hesitate to use terms such as half-siblings or stepsiblings, which indicate a distance they do not themselves experience. Some
children develop new terminology such as everyday-siblings or livealone-child, which are more concurrent with their own experiences.
Others again, talk about how they feel compelled to use the wellestablished categories to make it easier for other people, outside their
family, to understand their relation(s). Handling complexity is thus not
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merely a question of being able to orient oneself. It also entails paying

attention to the fact that others need to orientate themselves in the
complexity of connections that constitute ones relations.
The concept of birth order is also more complex than it immediately
appears, as an individual can be the elder sister in one home, while being
a younger sister or the same age in the other home; and as the position
of elder brother changes to a position of younger brother due to the
arrival of new siblings, etc. It makes a difference to the relationship
whether one is the elder or the younger sibling, whether there are more
siblings the same age, or whether you are the only little one. Age is afforded importance per se in society, in families and by individuals, an
importance rediscovered in this study. The point is, however, that in
siblingships the way age interacts with the construction of relatedness is
highly dynamic: in practice, it varies how age is referred to when responsibilities, tasks and things are allocated or used as an explanation
when time-honoured privileges are challenged. Immediate and conventional references to age and size as fair and just arguments are not necessarily feasible in the siblingships we describe as long and wide. Here,
established systems of privilege collide when sibling groups are brought
together and new figurations are formed. In these changeable structures,
privileges and positions are open to negotiation. Age and biology are not
unimportant. On the contrary, they are subject to continual interpretation and assessment, keeping siblingships dynamic and complex.
There is no indication, however, that the diversity described here
leads to increased individuality or a sense of separateness between siblings. In fact, we encounter an approach to siblingships that, in ways
different to friendships, is based on conceptions of an emotional obligation, responsibility and the wish for an existential relatedness. This insight challenges the impression left by the public debate that modernday children are individualistic and self-centred. It also challenges the
counselling parents are given when in divorce proceedings, they are
encouraged to see their children as the individuals they are, with their
individual needs and experiences. Our study points to the fact that chil-
129
POSTSCRIPT
dren should indeed be seen as individuals, but we must not ignore the
strong sense of relatedness they share with their siblings. They work to
maintain their emotional bonds and their materially shared fates, which
make up siblingships and on which they are based. Even though it may
prove difficult, friction filled and sometimes conflictual, siblings have the
commitment to be a part of a collective, and they invest in that which
binds them together. A narrow focus on the child as an individual is at
the risk of overlooking how interrelated children can be with their siblings regardless of whether or not they are biologically related.
Potentials and Possibilities

We have already touched upon how emotionally complex siblingships
are and what they demand in terms of attention on the part of the involved children. This complexity is also very practically expressed when
the different rhythms of many different people and different spaces all
have to be coordinated. On the surface, it would appear that it is the
children who commute between different homes, families and sibling
groups in particular, who practice strategies that enable them to handle
a highly complex everyday existence and from which they gain a core
competency in logistics. And looking a little bit closer, it is true of many
of the children who in each their different ways are part of long and wide
siblingships. Short and narrow siblingships may call for the same competences, but there is less insistence on practicing these competences, if all
siblings are located in one place and the household includes a smaller
number of children. Complex sibling constructions call for abilities to
navigate and master diversity on many levels. Being part of a sibling
relation that is not physically present at all times, affords expertise in
relating to and maintaining relations to people who are located elsewhere and live by different rhythms than oneself. It is also a useful point
of departure for improving ones ability to handle in- and exclusion processes, an expertise, which is also generated through siblings experiences of handling conflicts.
130
POSTSCRIPT
Many of the children who figure in this book have developed such
competences. They manage to bond while being separated, and they are
concerned with coordinating and being proper and predictable persons.
They are able to handle complex situations and asynchronous relations.
Such competences, generated by the sibling configurations we call long
and wide, are not only important to given individuals, they are also relevant from a societal perspective. We actually think that in this manner,
siblingships are potentially supportive of civil society, in as much as they
develop and unfold different types of civil responsibility, reciprocal care,
social coordination, as well as the independent/individual handling of
conflicts and oppositions between people who are not necessarily present at the same time. Such skills developed in the family and private
sphere can prove important in a society where global interdependence,
wide networks and transit movements to an ever increasing degree will
inform human interrelations and modes of communication.
Rethinking Siblings and Family?

Our focus in this book has been siblings, and we have underlined the
importance of a horizontal perspective on family relations. The voices
and perspectives of children have characterized the study. By focusing
on children as actors and by implementing a horizontal perspective on
family dynamics, we have gained access to experiences and knowledge
about modern families, which have hitherto been underexplored. We
have come to understand that having many siblings can become a great
emotional resource and having many homes can prove enriching. We
have also come to understand that moving between several homes is
hard work, and that being part of such an intricate web of relations, demands great responsibility on the part of the children involved.
Naturally, parents also play a major part in relation hereto, although
we have, throughout the book, placed them in the background. Parents
create the material frameworks within which children in a family can be
and become siblings. And parents underpin and shape atmospheres and
131
POSTSCRIPT
interactions based on ideas about what siblingship is, could or should be,
coloured by their own experiences and sibling narratives.
We were surprised by the solidity of the figure of the nuclear family
with a permanent address. It still appears to be the dominant perception
of proper family life, and it also informs sibling relations. This figure of
the nuclear family appears in the family narratives of both children and
parents, and it is also revealed in the practical ways of creating a home.
When children move between several homes, in most cases, they move
in and out of nuclear families. Sometimes it is nuclear families on
standby, waiting for the child/children to make it complete. At other
times, it is continually functioning nuclear families, to which extra life is
added, by way of a room opened, an extra chair at the table, an addition
to the birth order, when the child/children step back in the line that
makes up this particular arrangement.
What is striking is the fact that although we have come across a diversity of different life situations in the families we have been in contact
with, most choose to organise as a nuclear family, regardless of the
changes to structure and adult partners. Rather than establishing new
family configurations, they repeat the model we call the short and narrow family. Practically all the children we spoke to live in or change between narrow and short families. And this takes place simultaneously
with the ever-increasing and continual branching-out of modern siblingships. In practice, they are long and wide. Perhaps it is the difference
between sibling configurations and family configurations that underlie
the reasons why more children distinguish between being siblings and
being related to someone, and differentiate between their own families
and their siblings families. In this way, there is a mismatch and nonsimultaneity between contemporary siblingships and the parallel and/or
serial short and narrow families within which they unfold. Alternative
ways of practicing family and home, which to a greater extent reflect the
length and width in sibling relations, could perhaps address this.
Perhaps the siblings in our study will have the experiences and skills
related to complex communities needed for them to unfold, as adults,
132
POSTSCRIPT
other ideas about the right way of performing families and as a consequence thereof, they may engage with other ways of living and develop
new ways of talking about family. Family configurations which to a
higher degree reflect and match loving relations that last for the time
being as well as sibling relations that are established and maintained all
the time.
133
Reflections on a Sibling Study

We wanted to study the phenomenon, siblings. Even from the outset, this
contained a significant challenge: we wanted to know what being siblings meant to the children we were in contact with, and for them to
understand what we were talking about, we had to use the common
word, siblings. However, by using the category of siblings in interviews
there was a risk that our own relatively implicit understandings of the
nature of the phenomenon unwittingly would be at play and thus limit
rather than open up their understanding of the phenomenon. In order to
deal with this challenge and break away from our own preconceived
understandings, we carefully tried, whenever possible, to substitute the
category of siblings with other words and to maintain a curious and
inquisitive approach to the childrens stories. We strived to respectfully
listen to their perceptions of siblingship, how they themselves shaped
and afforded siblingship meaning, their personal experiences with conflicts and joy, dreams and disappointments, as well as their conceptions
of the more general perceptions and ideals relating to siblingships. At
the same time, we inspired them to associate in other ways than perhaps
seemed immediately obvious to them. Which also helped us ensure that
we were not just confirming our own preconceptions.
In the analysis, our strategy has been a kind of double-hermeneutics,
which included breaking with their interpretations of what being siblings entails and breaking with our own immediate interpretations of
their interpretations by way of posing self-critical questions to the reach
of our own interpretations. We did so by seeking oppositions and dilemmas and paradoxes internally in the individual childrens narratives
and by crisscrossing between the different narratives. We wished to
orientate, disorientate and re-orientate ourselves. And on top of this, we
added inspiration from other studies. In this interplay between material
134
and analytic inspirations from other research studies, we have come

closer to an understanding of the phenomenon, siblings.
In the introduction to this book, we have described how we generated the empirical material. In this postscript we would rather reflect on
the kind of knowledge contributed by a multifaceted material such as
ours. We wish in particular to discuss the inclusion of visual material
and the deliberations behind the production of a film as well as the way
the film relates to the book. Finally, we wish to reflect on some of the
challenges and points generated by working as a research collective.
Bricolage
Empirical material is always generated in the light of the research questions posed, the theoretical and analytical perspectives that the researchers bring to the project, and that which is practically possible in
any given field. As already stated, we were interested in shedding light
on the diverse interrelations between siblings, their ways of managing
siblingships, and to gain knowledge about how these relations materialize, and how conflicts and intimacy play out. As experienced ethnographers we knew that a classical ethnographic approach, which consists
of participant observations over long periods of time, could prove profitable in terms of getting close to the way siblingships unfold under different circumstances. This approach had, however, the limitation that it
would be difficult to cover wide ground and encompass sufficient variations. In order to clarify the subject matter in a nuanced way, it was important to include children with many siblings as well as children with
few siblings, siblings who continually lived together, and siblings who
were separated for periods of time. We also wanted to include children
who experienced the arrival of new siblings, and children who rarely
saw their siblings. These were the variables we looked for, more than the
classic parameters such as gender, class and ethnicity.
Variation became a higher priority than in-depth examinations of the
interrelations between few people, and rather than engaging in fieldwork, we conducted qualitative interviews combined with other more
135
ethnographically inspired methods. We conducted interviews in the

childrens homes, thus gaining insight into their surroundings, and we
conducted interviews with several children from the same sibling group
and with their parents, which allowed us to encounter different perspectives on the same relations. We also spent time observing in a familycounselling centre in order to get close to the conversations children
have about their families, and to gain a sense of counselling priorities in
practice. And finally, we conducted filmed observations with a smaller
number of sibling groups and families. This has left us with a bricolage of
material, which contains written observations, footage, and interview
transcriptions of many childrens thoughts and reflections on their relations as well as on their private doings and concerns (narrated on tape
and/or film). The combination of observations, participation and interviews has enabled us to get closer to the everyday practices of the informants rather than solely having their descriptions on, for example,
moving between homes and siblings. In addition to this primary material, we have snapshots from the media landscape (childrens books, adverts, films and Facebook), where siblings are presented and visualised,
discussed and assessed. This material forms a background that informs
an understanding, which has also guided our attention. Finally, we have
parents statements and statements from a selection of professionals
about own or other childrens sibling life. Which, all combined, affords us
a chorus of diverse voices, some stronger than others. It is these voices
we have listen to and tried to extract meaning from.
In the introduction, we briefly described how we recruited children
to the project by way of what is usually referred to as the snowballing
method. As our point of departure, we had constructed a matrix to ensure great variation, and our goal was 12 types of siblingships. We wanted to include siblings characterised by having experienced changes in
their everyday interactions with siblings, due to their parents divorcing;
siblings who were denied a shared everyday life; and siblings who had
spent their entire lives together in an unbroken nuclear family. Qualitative studies of this kind, however, are not always easy to manage, and
136
therefore all parameters of variation originally decided upon are not

necessarily fulfilled. In spite of the many differences included in our
material, there is a majority of ethnically Danish, middle-class children.
We have not been able to go deeper into the connections between class
and siblingships, as we did not have enough information about the families situations. On the other hand, we can conclude that within what we
term the middle-class, there are greatly differing life circumstances,
which in our material reveals itself as differences in the families life
style. We consider this variation a quality in terms of understanding the
many facets of siblingship.
The research approach drawn on in our study enables the transformation of empirical material to research-based knowledge to take its
point of departure in the material. Rather than predetermining which
theoretical inspirations and analytical concepts should frame our analyses, we have allowed inspiration from existing family and sibling research to help us locate themes within our material. And from here, we
have sought concepts that productively could help us twist what appeared recognisable and open up for new understandings of contexts
and perspectives. We have not searched for results and findings like gold
diggers; we have interpreted contexts. Our empirical work and our analyses have afforded us insight into a complexity of threads, connections
and part-elements, which we add to the already existing knowledge in
this field. We have not come out on the other side with a complete blanket of knowledge, all knots tied. Rather, we are about to weave a larger
blanket of knowledge about siblings and siblingships that includes reels,
thread, yarn, slides and frame. Our analyses produce patterns and allow
us to decipher different sibling formations and figurations.
The Visual Material

Part of our empirical material is visual and it is included on par with
transcriptions and observations in the collective amount of knowledge
that we work with. It is not particularly unusual to use video tapings as a
means of observation on par with audio recordings of interviews or
137
photos taken during fieldwork. But wanting to make a film and allowing
it to stand as an independent analysis, opens up a number of questions:
how was the visual material produced and which considerations informed the final product? What kind of knowledge does the film represent? What is not seen and which criteria determined what was opted in
or out? Is it merely a presentation of data or does it constitute an independent analysis? How can a film be presented alongside a written
product such as a book?
We chose to edit the material into a film, which resulted in
(Ex)changeable Siblingships Experienced and Practiced by Children
and Young People in Denmark. The film can be viewed as an appetizer,
providing the viewer with a sense of the ethnographic field, and as an
analysis of which aspects are at stake in siblingships. In addition, the film
can point to what would be interesting to look closer at. The format of
the film allows us to move the viewer, while at the same time presenting
significant aspects of the phenomenon. In much the same way that we
have coded the interview material, all footage (21 hours) has been
logged, i.e. we have produced an overview of all clips, complete with
dates, time codes, length, participants, actions, themes and possible
comments about the visual and audial quality. With this and from a thorough examination of the additional material, the research team looked
through every single clip and decided on themes. From then on, the editing process and the creation of the film itself, was conducted as a movement between thematic analyses and the filmed material in total. When
watching your own recordings, you are completely dependent on the
sound and audial quality of the different sequences, as they form the
basis of the presentation. In written material, it is possible to work with
a quote, even when the audial quality is poor. When working with filmed
material, one is unrelentingly dependent on existing material. It is possible to patch things up, create cover-frames, fade in and out yet the
audios and visuals need to function. In practice, this means extensive
(and time-consuming) work, consisting of inserts and excerpts, cross-
138
cuts, audio fades, and numerous adjustments, which slowly merge pictures and sound into a final film.
Add to this the question of ethics. Working with visual material and
editing the material until it becomes a final film challenges the ethical
responsibility of researchers, as it is not possible to use the tried and
trusted forms of veiling or rendering participants anonymous, most
common to the scientific processing of empirical material. Usually, peoples names are changed. Place names, times, family constellations, gender, etc. can be altered, or different people are presented as one. Often,
researchers will choose the veiling procedures that appear least intrusive to the analytical points. These tricks are not feasible when working
with visual material, unless black beams are painted across peoples eyes
or faces are blotted out, all of which would radically change a film such
as this one. We have incorporated several strategies to ensure that the
participating children are presented in an ethically sound manner. Initially, we secured written consent from both the participating children
and their parents, having first sent them a thorough description of what
their participation would involve. After filming and editing, we have
shown each sequence to the individuals involved, after which they consented to the footage being used in the final film. While editing the film,
we activated a highly ethical gaze, which also means that there are sequences and themes we have had to leave out, despite being aware that
we also left out important analytical angles. We had to balance our ambition of communicating knowledge and the fact that the children involved
must be able to live with our presentation.
We have tried to organise the film-sequences in a manner that allows
the chosen themes to reach across each other: siblings are people you hit
and kiss on the back of their neck; conflicts; between two homes; new siblings; missing siblings/getting tired of siblings; the will to be part of and
maintain siblingships; hope/future. These themes are primarily illuminated by filmed interviews supplemented with recordings of siblings
everyday activities as an indication of the contexts we have been allowed
access to. Thus, we have tried to balance ethical, analytical and aesthetic
139
considerations in our presentation. We regard the visual material as an

integral part of the entire research project, and the film as part of our
interpretation of what the phenomenon siblings currently entails. It is,
however, also an independent ethnographical film, which in itself talks
about facets of siblingships, with an emphasis on childrens perspectives
and voices, which in terms of genre, matches the book.
Researching Collectively
From the very beginning, the project was designed as a compressed
process, in order to ensure a dynamic and flowing research process.
Within a timeframe of three years, we wished to bring siblingships out
onto the open seas. And not just for a short cruise. We wanted to visit
many ports, including the phenomenon of siblings, siblings in broken
families, siblings more generally and sibling perceptions. We have come
part of the way but are still far from having circumnavigated the entire
concept. When we nonetheless consider ourselves to have covered substantial mileage, it is very much due to a collectively lifted research process. Many research projects are conducted by way of a group of researchers sharing an interest, who then come together in an overall project consisting of individual sub-projects. We wished for a different
model, in order to ensure that the individual researchers contributed to
the overall illumination of siblingship. We wished to maintain and further develop what we have tried on a lesser scale in smaller research
projects: to produce a collective project, which allowed all of our professional and personal approaches, perspectives and experiences to interact in every process. We therefore decided to jointly consider the project, create the empirical design, collect the empirical material, analyse,
develop themes, read and orient ourselves in the theoretical landscape
and write this book.
The material and practical conditions must be in place, which among
other things includes the presence of a granting body. The grant by the
Egmont Foundation in Denmark as well as their faith in our ideas and
our work has thus been a determining factor. On the one hand, it is
140
greatly rewarding to generate knowledge collectively, as the process is

infused with much manpower, existing insights and experiences as well
as synergy and dynamics. On the other hand, it is quite ambitious to
make a research project dependent on the synchronising of the involved
parties work schedules (especially when these researchers are employed at universities where they also have to teach and administer),
and on the will and ability of said researchers to coordinate their
thoughts, approaches and differently styles. We have, however, managed
to create compressed work periods, long working days, intense weeklong work trips that have clearly defined the project and moved it on. We
have also managed to overcome the times when we were out of step
with one another, wandering off in different directions, getting lost, and
not only in the piles of material generated, but also in the wilderness of
theoretical positions, analytical ideas and ways of understanding the
academic genre. It may seem both private and inconsequential, but it is
important to understand how the interaction between coordinated and
uncoordinated efforts both reflect the basic conditions of our research
and the fact that it has most likely been absolutely necessary and determining for the final output. Another reason why collectively has proved
successful, is possibly the fact that we all have similar disciplinary training and basic research interests. Our background is anthropology or
cultural sociology, our approach is cultural analysis, and we are all concerned with studying childrens perceptions of everyday life, both in and
outside institutions. Theoretically, we have different inspirations, yet
this has proven productive to our work with the empirical material and
various theories.
In addition to this specific ambition to work collectively, research
projects are always collective in the sense that although you think on
your own, you are not alone, and most certainly not in a void. We stand
on the shoulders of other researchers, and we inherit theories, concepts
and insights from our theoretical forefathers and foremothers. In addition to generating knowledge collectively, our drive and collective ambition has been to illuminate the collective character of this kind of study;
141
i.e. to contribute more broadly to the development of new (or perhaps

the reintroduction of traditional) ways of collaborating in academia. We
have, naturally, presented our work at scientific conferences; but we
have particularly benefited from inviting relevant researchers to take
part in a constructive and enriching exchange. This has been rendered
possible because, among other things, the funds granted by the Egmont
Foundation provided the financial foundation that enabled us to invite
Danish as well as international researchers with professional expertise
to supplement the expertise of the research group. These discussions
have been incredibly giving on a professional level and have simultaneously functioned as a kind of quality assessment and thus a reinterpretation of the quality assessment format, which in this manner changes
from being some sort of point-administering control apparatus to professional sparring. In much the same way, we have, along the way, invited selected professionals who work with children and child related matters (family therapists, health visitor, pedagogues, teachers, employees
at the regional state authority dealing primarily with issues concerning
family matters, the National Council for Children and Childrens Welfare
as well as volunteers who work within the field), to discuss and put our
preliminary analyses in perspective. The purpose of this was to afford us
the opportunity to delve deeper into the material and simultaneously to
allow ourselves to be challenged and moved by each other as well as a
number of knowledgeable actors within the field.
The material has been analysed, ventilated and thoroughly revised
over and again, and with this book, we throw our explorations out there,
in much the same way that you throw a stone into the sea, hoping that
rings will spread.
142
(Ex)changeable Siblingship
Experienced and Practiced by
Children and young people in
Denmark
Film (28 min.)
By Ida Wentzel Winther, Mads Middelboe Rehder, Charlotte Palludan
and Eva Gullv
The film features 30 children and young people from 10 constellations of
siblings, covering siblings who live together with all of their siblings and
siblings who live in multiple homes or on boarding schools. Through
childrens own voices, the focus is on the experience of being siblings,
and how everyday sibling relationships can be demanding, challenging
and difficult; yet also create closeness and emotional support.
https://youtu.be/a6vXpmpz008
143
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Ida

Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, 2015

Siblings Practical and Sensitive Relations

Publishing Editor: Lone Fredensborg

A SIBLING STUDY THEORETICAL INSPIRATIONS

CHAPTER 1 REAL SIBLINGS

CHAPTER 2 THE IMPORTANCE OF THINGS

CHAPTER 3 MEDIATED INTERACTIONS

CHAPTER 4 SIBLINGS BETWEEN SPACES

CHAPTER 6 CONFLICTUAL CLOSENESS

CHAPTER 7 MOBILE POSITIONS

CHAPTER 8 DOUBTING THE OBVIOUS

REFLECTIONS ON A SIBLING STUDY

FILM: (EX)CHANGEABLE SIBLINGSHIP EXPERIENCED AND PRACTICED

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

This is a fascinating book on a neglected subject, which is yet so common

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

ture as another way of gaining an understanding of the participating childrens behaviour.

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

In this book, we investigate childrens experiences and perceptions of

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

is a small group of children who have experienced no changes to their

The Structure of the Book

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

This approach has reduced the presence of references and theoretical

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

A Sibling Study theoretical

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

children. In addition to this family type, there are, in Denmark, multiple

Family Relations are Shaped Through Practice

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

shape, intensity and character, also individually, throughout childhood.

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

this, we furthermore draw on the anthropologist Janet Carstens concept

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

We try to identify these social dynamics, variations and changes by

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

researchers, it is important to disengage from the preconceptions that

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

The Material Behind the Book

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

ing sporting events, visits to cafs, spending cosy evenings at home, or

What Did We Ask the Children?

SIBLINGS - PRACTICAL AND SENSITIVE RELATIONS

CHAPTER 1: REAL SIBLINGS

You began (the interview) by saying that Kasper isnt your

You know, Kasper and I have a really close relationship.

In these excerpts from an interview, Bodil reflects on her relation to a

CHAPTER 1: REAL SIBLINGS

alternate between parents. As is apparent, she considers Kasper her

CHAPTER 1: REAL SIBLINGS

CHAPTER 1: REAL SIBLINGS

and she describes him as a closer brother. As her narrative progresses, it

CHAPTER 1: REAL SIBLINGS

The second understanding of siblings, that of lived experiences of

CHAPTER 1: REAL SIBLINGS

CHAPTER 1: REAL SIBLINGS

As will be discussed further in the books last chapter, Doubting the

Relatedness and Autonomy